A Simple Trade
by The Handsome Barbarian
Summary: What started as a simple trade ended as something much more dangerous. Mild language. Rating is solely the product of the writer being paranoid.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, before you start reading, you should probably know that I have no idea when this story is set. I honestly just started typing and characters entered and exited whenever they pleased. There's probably something in here that's incompatible with the timeline of the show, but whatever. Please don't hurt me.**

 **Also, sorry for the delay. I am in the midst of trying to write another story, but I've hit some serious writer's block. I mean, it's a beast. Anyhoo, it'll probably take me a while to finish, and I prefer to finish my stories before I start to upload so there are no month/year long gaps in between chapters. Sorry...**

 **So: Morgan = random worker, Chuck = Nerd Herd, Sarah = fake girlfriend. This takes place way back when.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck, the man or the show.**

Chuck cut the engine and sighed, looking up through his windshield at the Buy More. The clock read 8:17. Technically, he was late, but, recently, Chuck had been less concerned with punctuality. It used to be that Chuck was the perfect worker: always on time, always working until the end of his shift, usually trying to keep the rest of his boneheaded companions from scaring away all their customers.

But now, what with all of his… extracurricular activities, he often either skipped out on most or all of a shift or woke up sore and exhausted from the previous night's excursions. He could pretty confidently assume that these went hand-in-hand, and yesterday had been no exception. He and the rest of the team had been called in to handle a smuggling handoff that was going to take place on the docks. Of course, being the lowlife scum that they were, said smugglers decided to hold this transaction in the ungodly hours of the morning.

It had gone pretty smoothly, with Casey only being forced to shoot a couple of thugs, and Chuck was on his way home in less than half an hour after the whole situation began. Which, of course, begged the question: Why was he even needed there in the first place?

Chuck's sleep-deprived brain was still struggling to answer this question as he stepped out of his Nerd Herder and stumbled sluggishly up to the sliding doors of the Buy More. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the windows and quickly smoothed down his hair as he stepped into the convenience store.

It was pretty empty, having only been open for less than twenty minutes. He looked around and was not surprised to see that there were very few green shirts around either. As he walked down the center aisle to the Nerd Herd desk, he glanced toward Big Mike's office and was just able to see the large man disappear into his dark office with what looked like three entire boxes of doughnuts in his possession. Chuck wondered absently how many more boxes his boss would end up eating before the day was through. His appetite was of a legendary status. It was said, through the Buy More underground (yes, it did exist, although it was really populated solely by Lester and Jeff) that Big Mike once wreaked his revenge on a bad employee by breaking into his house via window and ate every last crumb in his pantry and refrigerator.

He no longer threatened this, however, because he did not want to advertise that he could barely fit through a French window, let alone a normal one. At least, that was how Lester told the story.

He did have his flaws, but it was hard to dislike him. Big Mike was almost always on time, and that was really all that could be said for the man, as far as his business managing went. He was lazy, always looking for someone to hand off his work to. All that being said, he had a soft spot for Chuck (and now Morgan, although that's for a slightly different, kind of creepy reason), and Chuck could honestly say that he almost returned the sentiment.

He could also honestly say that he envied how easily Big Mike's problems went away by just eating them all with a side of doughnuts. He tried that once, and had gone through several barrels of cheese puffs and grew an impressive homeless man's beard before he was finally shaken out of his stupor. At the end of it, he was disappointed to find that his problems were still very much there, and showed no signs of just leaving on their own.

It was a chapter of his life that he preferred to leave closed.

It was also something that he would do horrible things to keep Sarah unaware of.

Chuck brought his thoughts back to the present and rounded the counter. He sat heavily in his black rolling desk chair and dropped his bag on the counter with a grunt. He blearily looked around the store and was able to see the top of the afro of one of his coworkers a few aisles over. _At least someone came in today,_ he thought.

In all fairness, it was a Monday, which meant that the chances of Morgan getting up before eleven were immediately reduced by at least fifty percent, and the chances that Jeff or Lester would ever get up at all were reduced from a generous thirty percent down to a solid eight and a half.

Chuck checked his watch. 8:19. _Oh God_ , he thought. _This day is never going to end_. The doors slid open and another customer walked in.

"Welcome to the Buy More, where you can buy more because you save more if you shop at the Buy More. How can I help you?" Chuck rattled off without looking up.

He heard a very familiar chuckle. "Oh, well, since you asked so nicely," Morgan began.

"Nevermind, Morgan." Chuck yawned. "You're late, you know."

"Hey, you should be proud that I even got here," Morgan pointed out. "That makes it… what, three weeks in a row?"

"Yeah, showing up to work on a Monday like every other employed human on the planet, very impressive," Chuck said absently. Morgan smiled happily, if somewhat blearily, and walked to the back of the store to put his stuff in his locker.

It was another hour before Jeff and Lester showed up. Chuck had no idea why they always turned up together. It was kind of creepy, because they always walked through the doors at the same time. It was almost as if… as if they carpooled to work together, or maybe even _lived together._

Chuck shuddered at the thought. The carpooling idea was the less disturbing of the two, and the most likely, since Jeff literally lived in a van. Why Lester wouldn't just drive himself to work would remain a mystery, since Chuck was too afraid to ask. There was nothing Chuck wanted less than to know what went on in that greasy head.

Well, that or what went on when Jeff was in his van, but even the thought of finding out made Chuck retch. Some things were better left unseen.

"Hey guys," Chuck said as Jeffster walked past the desk.

Lester put up his hand in Chuck's face. "Silence, Charles," he said, keeping his eyes front and center. "We have important business to attend to."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Do you?"

Lester nodded self-importantly.

Chuck rested his elbows on the desk. "And what sort of 'important business' would this be that is worth coming in an hour late?"

Lester shook his head, refusing to look at the person he was addressing. "I'm sorry, Charles, but it is far too important for your tiny brain to comprehend."

Chuck was contemplating whether or not to bring up his Stanford history and compare it to Lester's when Jeff peeked out from behind Lester's shoulder. It looked as if he had actually put some effort into combing down his wild hair, but it had been to no avail. "If we told you, we'd have to kill you," he whispered loudly, dead serious. "It's secret government information."

"Jeff!" Lester hissed over his shoulder, still not tearing his eyes away from whatever was so interesting in the middle distance. "We discussed this. You cannot mention the nature of this to anyone, remember?"

"Oh, right." Jeff creepily winked at Chuck. "But we can trust Chuck, right?"

Lester rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I don't know why I keep you around, Jeff."

"Maybe because, without Jeff, you would just be known as Ster to the music community?" Chuck offered, bemused.

"No, of course not," Lester sputtered. "I could replace Jeff at any time and find someone whose name would be just as- as… Whatever, it's not important. Come along, Jeff." Lester smoothed back his hair, which already lay flat against his skull, and strode down the main aisle to the back room. Jeff followed after eying a middle-aged woman studying a CD player.

Chuck watched them storm away and realized that Lester was wearing leather pants. He immediately shrieked and looked away, rubbing his eyes furiously, but it was of no use. The image was burned into his eyes and would haunt his every dream for years.

Chuck should be used to these kinds of antics by now, but his coworkers were able to reach higher and higher levels of idiocy that he hadn't known existed in his college days. That was saying something, since everyone knows that college is a time to experiment and be stupid.

As another few hours passed, Chuck was reminded of all the reasons he wanted out of the electronic store business in the first place. It reminded him of where he had been before Bryce sent him the email that, depending on the day, either ruined Chuck's life or improved it beyond anything Chuck thought was possible.

Basically, it was a normal day at the Buy More: boring as all get-out and not looking to improve any time soon.

There was a good amount of customers who visited, but Chuck's job was to man the Nerd Herd desk. He was to sit in his rolly chair and stare at the phone, waiting for someone who had forgotten how to turn their computer off and back on again to call and ask for help. Then, he was to drive out in his Nerd Herder that was barely big enough for him and push the power button for the customer, get paid an exorbitant price, and end up with less than a third of the profit.

Not to mention that he was struggling to keep his heavy eyes open and his head up off the desk. And, on top of it all, he hadn't seen Jeffster in at least an hour, which meant one of two things: they were up to no good in the back room, or Jeff was drunk in the break room and Lester was scaring away any and all female customers.

Chuck sighed and sat back heavily in his chair, watching Morgan try to sell a television to some old man who obviously wouldn't be around much longer to enjoy it if he was manipulated into buying it. He glanced at his watch for the millionth time that day. 11:22. Not even lunch time yet.

Morgan saw him check his watch and called, "Time for lunch yet?"

Chuck shook his head regretfully, and Morgan turned his attention back to the old man. Chuck's head was slowly falling toward the desk and his eyelids were growing dangerously heavy when the phone rang. He jerked upright violently and smoothed back his hair reflexively before grabbing for the phone and holding it to his ear. _Finally, something is happening,_ he thought with relief.

"Hello, this is the Nerd Herd at the Buy More, ready to help you with any technical difficulties, how may we assist you?" he said quickly.

A pause. "Oh, uh…" A teenaged boy's voice came over the phone line. "Sorry, man, I guess I got the wrong number. Unless… does Jessica live there?"

Chuck's hopes, which had risen with the phone ring, slowly fell again. "Nope," Chuck answered, trying to keep his voice up. "Sorry, no Jessica here. This is actually a Buy More, so no one lives here."

"Damn it!" The boy on the other end let out a string of profanities. "She gave me a bad number!"

Chuck wished he could sympathize with the kid, but he could truthfully say that he had never been given a phony number by a girl before. He could also truthfully say that he had never gotten a phone number from a girl, either, but that little bit of information wasn't necessary to bring up.

The kid, after shouting a few more choice words, hung up, and Chuck set the phone back down. Another glance at the watch: four minutes had passed.

Chuck groaned and finally let his head fall against the desk with a loud thud. "This day is never going to end," he muttered under his breath.

As he tried to mentally retrace his steps that led him to this place and think through the many mistakes that led here, he heard Morgan wolf whistle at someone. _Oh, god_ , he thought, despairingly. _Morgan, don't make a fool out of yourself. Again. Like you do every time any female within twenty years of your age passes by._

Thankfully, Morgan didn't pursue the woman in question or say anything that would have insulted her and caused her to storm out in a fury. It had happened before. Morgan referred to these occasions as "getting to know her a bit better". Chuck preferred the more conventional phrase "getting slapped in the face and left in the dust". Apparently, Morgan had heard it both ways.

Either way, this was not the case today. Said woman simply chuckled quietly, as if she were used to such behavior, and kept walking. Chuck almost raised his head just to thank her for not making a big deal out of it, but decided it was too much effort.

"Chuck?"

It was suddenly worth it to raise his head. He shot to his feet and straightened his shirt self-consciously. "Oh. Hi, Sarah. I, uh, didn't realize you were coming. Here. Today." He inwardly cringed as his mouth kept babbling.

Sarah flashed a smile at him. Her white shirt was stained from what Chuck could only assume was frozen yogurt. "What, I can't visit?"

Chuck was suddenly retreating for an insult he wasn't sure he made. "No! I mean, of course you can visit, I just wasn't aware that you wanted to. Visit. Today."

"Oh," Sarah said with a smirk, enjoying watching him squirm. "So, I need to tell you in advance?"

"No!" Chuck said quickly. "That's not what I'm saying, I just-you caught me by surprise, is all." He took a deep breath and tried to make sense of his thoughts. "Sorry. Can we just start this entire conversation over?"

Sarah shrugged. "Nah, that's okay. Anyway, I need to talk to you."

"About what?" Morgan interjected.

Sarah turned slowly to look at him. "Hi, Morgan," she said with a dangerous smile. "Would you mind taking a walk?"

Morgan narrowed his eyes at her. "Fine. But some day, you're going to tell me what all of this secret stuff is that you two are always discussing privately."

Sarah shook her head. "No, I don't think I will."

Morgan smiled. "That's okay. Chuck will tell me eventually. We're best friends. We don't keep big secrets from each other." He caught Chuck's eye as he said that, then turned on his heel and sought out another customer.

Sarah looked back at Chuck. "We need you back at Castle."

"Right now?" Chuck asked. "Really? But I'm at work, and my job is kind of important, you know."

A smile played around Sarah's lips. "Right, because sleeping on your desk in the middle of a Buy More is more important than working with the CIA to save lives."

Chuck wisely decided to keep his mouth shut and followed Sarah out of the Buy More.

Lester watched them go, his devious little mind working over time. His eyes narrowed. "I'll find out what you're hiding, Charles," he whispered to himself. "Don't you worry about that." He began to laugh evilly under his breath, something he had been working to perfect over the past year since he lost a competition in the same vein to Morgan last year.

He choked on his own spit and his evil laugh became a slightly malevolent cough.

He had a ways to go yet.

 **Okay. That's done with now. I hope it all made sense. I kind of wrote it all between one and three in the morning, so... yeah. Also, this story started as a oneshot, but then I realized I could make it into a full blown story, so I did. I don't have it all finished yet, this was kind of an impulse story, so updates may be very erratic and it may take a while to finish (if I do at all). It won't be super long, and its basically a filler story while I figure out what to do with my other one. I'm not sure where this will go, exactly, but I'm sure it will be ridiculous, whatever it is.**

 **(The "simple trade" will take place next chapter. Don't worry.)**

 **Please review and let me know whether I should finish it or not, and if it's any good so far. Any reviews will be greatly appreciated (although this barbarian is sort of tender, so please keep it constructive).**

 **Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time.**

 **(Maybe.)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry it took so long. I got a lot of stuff going on in my life right now, so updating is difficult, but I'll do my best for the few who have deemed this story worthy of reading. (Thanks for that, by the way.) So, without further ado, Chapter 2.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck, the man or the show.**

"I still don't think this is a good idea," Chuck said apprehensively.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "You heard General Beckman, Chuck. It will be fine. All you have to do-"

"Is take the briefcase and hand him the phone, yeah, I got that part," Chuck finished for her. "That's not what I'm worried about."

"Then what is it?" Sarah asked.

Chuck shoved his hands in his pockets. "The choice of venue."

Sarah paused. "Oh. Well, I guess I can understand that, but I'm sure the General has put plenty of thought into this. It will go off without a hitch. And no one would suspect anything like this to take place in a Buy More, so it should be safe."

"Should be?" Chuck asked.

"Will be," Sarah corrected. "Casey and I will be there the entire time, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Chuck said, still hesitant. "But you're sure we can't do this anywhere else?"

"Absolutely positive," Sarah said, sounding more confident than she felt.

Chuck inhaled deeply. "Okay then. I guess I'll head back inside, then."

"Okay. Here's the phone." Sarah handed him a small, unobtrusive black cell phone, and he stashed it in his pocket. She flashed him a smile, hoping to keep him from thinking too much and freaking out. He returned it with a less than convinced smile that looked more like a confused grimace and walked back into the Buy More.

As he made his way back to the Nerd Herd hesk, he studied everyone that crossed his path carefully, hyper-aware of every movement they made. He reached the desk without accident and sat on the edge of his chair. His watch read 12:27.

He cursed mentally. The meeting in Castle had taken longer than expected, and his lunch break was over by almost thirty minutes now. He thought longingly of the sandwich he had stocked in the fridge, and his stomach growled.

He pushed the image out of his mind and concentrated on the task at hand. Beckman had called them together to discuss a trade that needed to take place. A member of the LA mafia was willing to come clean about his fellow underworld companions in exchange for protection from the rest of the mob, for both him and his wife. His name was Tony Hitchens, and he claimed to have information on every gang boss in the city, including a few from out of state.

Of course, the CIA jumped on his offer immediately. They needed a convenient meeting place that would be quick and easy to reach for Tony.

General Beckman immediately suggested a certain electronics store in Burbank, her reason being that there is no less interesting place to make such a trade. No one would suspect Tony to go there, and he agreed. Chuck was to be the intermediary, so he could make sure that Tony had come alone like he promised.

Sarah and Casey would be posted in the store and outside the front door, respectively, make sure nothing went horribly wrong. Beckman didn't want Tony to make any direct contact with any real agents, in case he backed out and revealed them to the mob.

Chuck saw no reason why this made him a better choice, since Tony could possibly mistake him for a spy and turn him over as well, but apparently, Beckman had no such fears for Chuck's wellbeing. This did nothing to boost his confidence as he waited for one o'clock to roll around. He was jumpy, flinching every time a customer addressed him. He was wary of every woman carrying a purse of firearm size, which described practically every woman in the store. He almost punched Morgan for coming up from behind and slapping his shoulder. And, worst, he was still on the verge of falling asleep.

"Wake up, Bartowski," Casey growled into Chuck's earpiece.

Chuck's head shot up. "I'm awake!" he shouted. He cringed a little when a family of three eyed him warily and moved a few aisles over. "I'm awake, Casey," he hissed, putting his watch near his mouth. "I'm just resting my eyes for when real trouble happens."

"Whatever you say, Chuck," Sarah laughed as she inspected a box claiming to contain a radio that could play without batteries or being plugged in. "Does this thing really work?"

"Does what work?" Chuck asked, searching the room for her telltale blond ponytail.

"This radio thing." Sarah peeked out from behind a wall and showed him the product.

Chuck squinted at it, then shook his head. "Nope. Total lie. I know this because Morgan tried it once and got so frustrated that he spilled a full glass of orange juice on it and still tried to return it the next day."

"Did they take it back?" Casey asked out of curiosity.

"Yep. Then they charged Morgan extra when they found out he returned a ruined product."

Sarah placed the box back in its spot. "Sounds like Morgan."

"Enough!" Casey said sharply. "We need to focus on the mission."

"Oh, come on, Casey," Chuck said. "You make these things so boring. You know, putting just a little effort into small talk might make people like you a bit more. You always come off a little… what's the word?"

"Intimidating?" Sarah offered.

"Yeah, that works," Chuck said thoughtfully. "You see, Casey, people don't like you if they can't get to know you. They get to know you if they talk to you. They won't talk to you if you constantly look like you're going to punch them in the face if they try."

"But I might," Casey hedged, sounding confused.

"That's not the point," Chuck said, exasperated.

"Doesn't matter now," Sarah said urgently. "Tony's on his way in."

Chuck's head whipped toward the door and he sat up ramrod straight, watching for Tony to walk in. "Calm down, Chuck," Sarah warned quietly. "Look normal." Chuck nodded and tried to look busy, picking up a pen and bending over a piece of paper. He glanced up every few seconds and froze when Tony walked in.

Chuck immediately flashed, a series of images bombarding his brain. Tony Hitchens, 37 years old, married to Mary Hannah Hitchens, 35 years old. Suspected as a member of the LA mob and for several thefts. He had never been linked to any murders, although he _was_ linked to a revengeful mob boss who most definitely was connected to several shootings and so on.

Chuck came back to the present in time to see Tony walk up to his desk. He stood quickly and met his eyes. Tony was about Chuck's height, although the way he carried himself seemed to add a few inches. His eyes were dark brown and placed close together over a badly broken nose. His thin lips were twisted down in a perpetual frown, set in a severe jaw line and an impressive chin. His light brown hair was cropped close to his skull.

Basically, he looked as stereotypically gangster as he could possibly get.

Chuck smiled nervously. "Uh, hi, Tony?"

Casey chuckled darkly. "Smooth, Bartowski."

Tony didn't return the smile. "That's me. You the agent who was sent to meet me?"

"Well, not exactly," Chuck hedged. "But I-"

Tony's small, deep set eyes narrowed. "If you're not the agent," he growled, his hand migrating slowly toward his hip, "then who the hell are you and how do you know who I am?"

Chuck's heart began to speed up, beating quickly and erratically as Tony's hand neared where Chuck was sure there was a weapon of the dangerous, very lethal kind. "Whoa, there," he said, struggling to remain calm. "There's no need for any _violence_." He emphasized the last word to make sure Sarah and Casey understood exactly what was going on.

"What? What's going on?" Sarah asked. "Chuck?"

Tony's hand stopped on his hip. "Then answer my question." He glanced down at the name card on Chuck's shirt. "Charles Bartowski. What kind of name is that, anyway?"

Chuck frowned. "Okay, first of all, that's rude, I had no control over what my last name is, and secondly, I happen to like my last name." He let his eyes briefly skip over Tony's shoulder to make eye contact with Sarah, who was waiting at a safe distance. She asked him a question with her eyes, making sure he didn't need immediate backup, and he subtly shook his head before returning his attention to the large man in front of him.

"Good for you. Who are you?" Tony asked again, his voice dangerously low.

"Ah, right," Chuck choked out. "I'm not an agent, no, but I-" Tony began reaching under his jacket for something, and Chuck sped up desperately. "I'm on your side, don't worry! I was sent here by the CIA to handle this whole… trade off thingie, whatever you want to call it."

Casey sighed. "Idiot."

"Not helping, Casey," Sarah hissed at him.

Tony was still studying Chuck. "How can I know you aren't lying? How can I know that you aren't just setting a trap for me?"

Casey came in through the front entrance and turned off to the left, keeping his eyes on the situation at the Nerd Herd desk.

"Well," Chuck said slowly. "For one thing, if I were setting a trap for you, why would I still be talking to you? I mean, you've already identified yourself as Tony. You couldn't have dressed more like a mob boss if you had tried, and you're clearly carrying the briefcase we came to get." Chuck gestured to Tony's outfit-leather jacket, black shirt, blue jeans, heavy boots- and the brown briefcase he was gripping tightly. "I mean, you even have the thing handcuffed to you," Chuck continued. "Could you be any more obvious?"

Tony considered his clothing. "So?"

"So," Chuck said, his tone saying that the conclusion was obvious, "therefore, if this was a trap, we would have already gotten you."

Tony thought through the logic of this for a few seconds. "Oh. Yeah, I guess so."

Chuck heard Sarah crackle in his earpiece. "Oh, he's smart, isn't he?" she asked sarcastically. Then her voice began to crackle and fuzz out, like there was bad connection. "I bet… top of… class… parents... proud... him."

Chuck's eyebrows drew together. They were literally within twenty feet of each other. Why would there be bad connection? He didn't have time to ponder this, however. Tony nodded, as if he had figured something out. "Okay. I guess we go ahead and trade, then?"

Chuck waited for a beat, ready for Casey to give him the all clear, but there was nothing but static on the other two lines. This was concerning, but, again they were all within the same building. He had no real reason to worry. But, even as he thought this, he realized that Casey had walked out of eyesight. This thought made him feel slightly more vulnerable.

He nodded. "Yeah, let's do it."

Tony leaned forward a bit and whispered, "Do you think we could do this in a more private room?"

Chuck didn't understand why Tony was suddenly concerned about being secretive now, after they had been talking for a few minutes in the open already, but he didn't hear any objections from his partners, so he shrugged. "Sure. Let's head to the back." He tried to get a glimpse of Sarah or Casey as he turned away, but they were not in sight.

As he led the way to the back, he tried to discreetly whisper into his mike. "Sarah? Casey? Are you there?" There was no reply, and, although he knew there was no real reason to worry, he couldn't quell the butterflies in his stomach. Casey usually never missed an opportunity to tell Chuck what to do, or to sarcastically insult him. It was slightly disconcerting that he was so silent. And Sarah was always at least narrating the entire time, making sure Chuck didn't freak out for any reason and always knew what to do.

He forced these thoughts out of his head, however, and opened the heavy door for Tony, who ducked past him. Chuck followed him into the darker room and checked the store behind him briefly for some sign from his partners that he was making a huge mistake. He couldn't look for too long, for fear of looking suspicious and scaring off the biggest lead the CIA had, so he kept it short and shut the door softly behind him.

"Okay, so what now?" he asked. He turned to look at Tony, who was studying the space. He eyed the part enclosed in chain-link fence.

"What is this?" he asked, gesturing to the cage.

"Oh, that?" Chuck said nervously. He wanted to get the whole ordeal over with as quickly as possible. "It's nothing, really. Just a little room, you know, inside another, uh, room. You know, I don't actually understand why we have it in here." A thought struck him. There was a small click from the direction of the door, but he ignored it. "Oh, well, I guess it protects all the stuff in there, maybe. Although, on second thought, there really isn't much in there to protect. And maybe a different choice in fence would be a… good idea." Chuck trailed off when he saw Tony frown at him.

"I don't really care, Birtooski. All I want is a promise that me and my family are gonna be safe if I give this to you." He unlocked the briefcase and took out a simple black flash drive.

"Actually, it's 'my family and I will be safe'," Chuck corrected, unable to stop himself. Tony levelled a death glare at him, and he gulped. "And what is that, exactly?" Chuck asked, trying to change the subject and not daring to also correct his name.

Tony laid it out on his palm. "All the information you asked for is on this. It's the only copy I have, and my former employers would kill for it."

"Oh," Chuck squeaked. "Would they?"

"Yeah, they would," Tony repeated slower, as if he were talking to a six year old.

"Do you mind if I, uh, check that real fast?" Chuck asked.

"Check it?" Tony growled. "Why? I already told you that everything's on here."

"I know," Chuck reassured him. "It's just that my employers want to be very sure that what you're giving me is, you know, the real thing. Not that I'm doubting you," he added quickly.

Tony grinded his teeth together. "How do I know that you aren't just going to take it and turn me in?"

"I guess you'll just have to trust me," Chuck said. "You can trust me, right?"

"I don't know, can I?" Tony repeated threateningly, but Chuck forced himself to be brave. He slowly reached toward the larger, heavier, scarier armed man and took the flash drive. "Yes, yes you can," he said. "I'm just gonna go plug this into the computer right over there, okay?"

He pointed to a computer on a desk in the corner, and Tony narrowed his eyes before nodding his consent. Chuck let out an inward sigh of relief and started toward the desk calmly.

A loud bang sounded in his right ear. It was short and sharp and very familiar, although it sounded like it had been cut off at the end a little. He flinched heavily and yelped, his gaze darting around the room to find the source. He saw nothing.

"What was that?" Tony asked roughly.

Chuck hesitated, extremely confused. "I- uh, I don't know. You didn't hear anything?" Tony shook his head no, and Chuck glanced around one more time. "Huh."

He tried to dismiss it, but as he walked, his brain suddenly placed the familiar noise as something he had heard a dozen times, now that Bryce had ruined his life.

 _A gunshot._

His brain raced as he sat at the desk. He punched the power button, and the computer slowly started to power up. He smiled nervously at the thug standing behind him, but Tony was pacing around the small room and didn't acknowledge him. A few more seconds passed, then another shot exploded in his ear. He managed to contain his reaction to a small flinch that Tony didn't see.

As the computer booted up, there was static and intermittent shouting. Chuck's heart rate skyrocketed as he listened. He forced his hands to stop shaking and tried to smile reassuringly at Tony before staring at the computer screen. There was a loud thud outside the door and a distant crash.

Chuck's head whipped toward the door, but Tony was standing in front of it. "What?" he asked, subtly crossing his arms.

He suddenly looked too much like a club bouncer for Chuck's comfort. A bouncer who, instead of keeping people out, kept them in, instead. Tony smiled threateningly at him. Chuck's blood froze.

"So, Tony," Chuck said, his voice surprisingly steady. "Who are your friends out there?"

Tony cracked his neck to the side menacingly. "None of your concern."

The computer finally woke up completely with a soft ding. Instead of plugging in the flash drive, Chuck gathered his courage to speak. "I beg to differ, actually," he said, again staying surprisingly calm. "It seems that someone out there is shooting up my store. I think that makes it my concern."

He immediately regretted his words when Tony walked up to him. He put his hands on his hips, pushing back the bottom of his jacket to reveal the glint of the handle of a pistol. "I seriously doubt that this is _your_ store," he said. "No one would ever believe that you're just a worker here. The CIA wouldn't send in some poor schmuck like you unless you were some kind of special agent. So cut the bull and tell me who you really are."

Chuck eyed the gun, his feigned confidence completely abandoning him. "Actually, I am just some poor schmuck that works at a Buy More, and I don't completely understand what's going on here, so if you could just-"

Tony slammed his hand on the desk. Chuck jumped and almost yelped. "Stop lying to me!" Tony shouted. He got in Chuck's face, his crooked nose almost touching Chuck's. "Tell me who you are, or I will shoot you, then I will go out there and shoot everyone in this building." As if to reinforce this point, there was another dull crash outside.

Chuck gripped the flash drive in his fist tightly. "This isn't real, is it?"

Tony flashed his yellow teeth. "It is very real, and if you're not even going to check it, then you might as well drop the facade and show me where you work."

"'Facade'," Chuck repeated. "Big word for someone with your brain capacity."

Tony's face hardened, but before he could react, someone pounded on the door. "Hey, Tony!" he shouted, his voice muffled by the door. "Let me in!"

Tony grunted and shoved off of the desk. "Who is it?" he said, annoyed that he had been interrupted.

"It's Rizzo!" the man replied. "Open up before I kick the door in!"

"I'd like to see you try," Tony muttered, but he started to unlock the door. Chuck didn't remember seeing him lock it in the first place, but, watching Tony struggle with the lock, he suddenly realized that he would only have a few more seconds until he was surrounded with multiple raging psychopaths instead of just the one.

He quietly slipped the flash drive in his pocket and rotated the chair toward the door that led out the back of the store. Keeping his eyes on Tony, who's back was now fully turned on him as he wrestled with the door, Chuck had time for one final thought. _I am so glad Big Mike was too lazy to fix that lock._

Then he took a deep breath, marshaled any remaining courage he had left, and shot out of the chair toward the exit.

 **So? Any good? Please review, it lets me know if I'm doing a good job or not. Also, it just makes me feel good and get motivated to keep writing. But you're busy people, so I'll stop talking now. Thanks for reading.**


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey!" Tony shouted after him. "Get back here!"

Chuck decided to ignore him for personal reasons and slammed through the back door and into an empty lot. It was so hot outside, with the sun almost directly overhead, that Chuck could see the air shimmering a few dozen feet in front of him, making the ground look wobbly. His undershirt was already sticking to him because of the heat.

There were some stairs leading down to ground level to his right, but he hurdled the railing instead and hit the ground hard. He fell to his hands and knees and was shaken up, but scrambled to his feet and took off. Tony shot out of the building behind him and hopped over the railing as well, rolling with the impact and running after Chuck.

Chuck glanced back over his shoulder in time to see a short man who must have been Rizzo jog down the stairs lazily, holding a lit cigarette in one hand. Chuck yelped when he saw Tony's murderous eyes and his adrenaline kicked up. He could feel the flash drive bouncing around in his pocket and he could hear the growling and panting of Tony behind him. Tony was a monstrous human being, yet he was still able to keep up with Chuck. He might even be faster too. He was definitely stronger, and scarier, and bigger, and...

Chuck decided that this line of thought wasn't helping any and shut it down.

He was headed down the side of the store toward the front parking lot. He could hear Tony's heavy breathing behind him and he tried to tune it out. Sweat dripping down from his hairline made his eyes sting. His heart was pounding erratically, and a stitch was growing in his side. It sent pain shooting through him with every step, but he knew he couldn't stop running.

He finally rounded the side building and skidded to a stop. Several black vans were parked out in front of the sliding doors of the Buy More. A few men stood talking to each other near the doors. One had a pistol out and was casually checking the magazine. The other two were arguing animatedly, occasionally gesturing to the third man. A fourth leaned against the passenger side door of the van closest to Chuck, smoking a cigarette and watching.

Chuck was frozen for a few seconds until the sound of Tony's footsteps behind him spurred him into action. He took off toward where the Nerd Herd cars were parked, on the far side of the parking lot.

Tony rounded the corner and slowed to a stop, his hands on his knees. "Hey!" he shouted. "Jake, Preacher, shut up and get him!"

The two guys who had been arguing looked at Tony, then turned to see Chuck charging across the pavement. They shared a glance, then sprinted after him. The man with the gun shoved the magazine back into his pistol and moved to the close side of the van. He watched, amused, as Chuck saw the gleaming metal and yelped.

The first plan that had come to mind was to hop in the Nerd Herder and get the heck out of there, but that plan was slowly becoming impossible, for two reasons. First, there were now three men actively chasing him, as well as one watching with a gun. Second, he only now realized that his keys were in his bag.

His bag was currently sitting on the ground next to the Nerd Herd desk in the Buy More. Therefore, his brilliant plan to run for his life was now, without a doubt, impossible. On top of all that, his stomach was growling at him for forgoing the sandwich he had stashed in the store fridge.

As this thought crossed his mind, he veered away from the white and red vehicles parked only a couple dozen more feet in front of him. He had no real destination in mind, other than _away from the psychopaths chasing him with guns_. His mind on autopilot, he simply focused on keeping his legs moving, staring at the ground in front of him. Despite the burning sensation in his thighs and the stitch in his side, it wasn't as hard as usual. The men behind him kindly kept sending bullets whizzing past him that kept his legs pumping.

One such bullet did more than just fly by him and scraped across the side of his ribs. A fiery pain spread through his torso, but he gritted his teeth against the pain and kept running. He dodged around a couple of parked cars and made a sharp turn. He was still running solely due to the adrenaline pumping through his veins, but he couldn't rely on it forever. He was going to break down eventually, and when that happened, he knew he couldn't count on mercy from Tony.

Chuck finally raised his eyes and saw that his feet had instinctively brought him to Sarah's frozen yogurt store, the Orange Orange. Chuck had always wondered why it was called that. It made no sense, really. But, then again, he supposed it didn't really need to make sense. It was a frozen yogurt shop, and barely even that. The yogurt didn't even taste very good. It really only existed as a cover for Castle, and-

 _Castle_. Of course! It was the only safe place for him right now, and it was only a few dozen feet away!

But a few dozen feet was no guarantee when guns are involved.

Chuck's side was burning fiercely, screaming at him to stop moving. He ignored it and focused on reaching the store. Another bullet shot past him. He could hear it as it passed, and it galvanized him into speeding up for the last ten feet.

He slammed into the glass doors and pushed through them, stopping long enough to turn and lock them behind him. He glanced through the glass and shrieked when he saw Tony's face, dark with fury.

Chuck sprinted behind the counter and ran into the freezer. He grabbed the handle and began to slide the massive door into place. As he reached halfway, Tony reached the door. Chuck had counted on him being stuck for at least a few seconds as he had to get past the lock on the door, but he had completely overlooked one crucial fact.

The door was made of glass.

Tony crashed through it with a full head of steam. He slammed into the wall, unable to stop in time, but then he turned and charged toward Chuck, followed by four more hulking men. Chuck yelped again (and made a mental note to stop making such high-pitched noises when facing such masculine mountains of meat as Tony) and pulled harder on the door, fueled by desperation and fear. It clanged shut, and Tony rammed into it. He bellowed and tried to open it, but Chuck locked it the instant it shut, and Tony wasn't going to be able to get through it with pure muscle any time soon.

Chuck made eye contact with him through the small window and, despite his better judgement, he made a face at the enraged mob member. Tony's eyes hardened. He said something, no doubt very menacing, but Chuck couldn't hear him through the door. "What?" Chuck shouted back. He gestured animatedly with his hands to convey the message that he had no idea what Tony had said.

Tony sighed visibly, then repeated in a louder voice that was still muffled, "What now? You're stuck in there! We'll just wait out here for you until you freeze!"

Chuck made a point to let panic flash in his eyes before pretending to try to hide it. He looked around, as if just realizing his predicament, and Tony laughed uproariously. He said something to the other men, who joined him in laughter.

Chuck backed away and stifled a few giggles of his own. Who knew he was such a good actor? He then walked to the back of the freezer past several shelves packed with yogurt, ice crystals crunching under his feet. He made his way to the secret door and found the scanner. As he placed his hand on it, he had a sudden thought- _What if my hand isn't good enough to open the door? What if they haven't added me to the database yet? I'll be stuck in here with only below-average yogurt inside and murderous men outside._

But all his worried were assuaged when there was a single beep, and the door opened with a hiss. He stepped into the elevator, relieved, let the doors close, and descended to Castle.

Tony glanced into the freezer again. He no longer saw the man with the ridiculous curly hair (what was his name? Birkenstock?), but there was nowhere he could have gone. He locked himself in a freezer, for god's sake! It's not like there's some secret passageway or something. He was in a yogurt shop. And even if there were, what were the odds that a Buy More employee, a Nerd Herder, would know about it? The word "nerd" was in his official title!

Tony tried to shove the doubts to the back of his mind and relaxed against the door, watching Jake and Preacher continue their fight from earlier. Preacher always got so worked up over such trivial things, and Jake was more than ready to supply said trivial things. Rizzo and Grant had already returned to the store. Tony wasn't quite sure why he kept three men over here, himself included. The little string bean in the freezer wouldn't be able to take out even the smallest member of Tony's team. He knew that, everyone knew that.

But he couldn't shake the feeling in his gut, the feeling that something was off. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something wrong with what he had just witnessed, the whole thing. He replayed the previous hour back in his mind, searching for it, but eventually gave up. If he was wrong, there was nothing to worry about. If he was right, well, that was what Jake and Preacher were there for.

Tony fingered the trigger of the gun in his hands. It wasn't his only weapon, of course. He couldn't forget the gun strapped to his ankle, or the knife in his sock, of the pistol in the back of his waistband, or the holster under his arm. _Good thing there are no metal detectors in electronic appliance stores_. _Or else the entire store would have lit up like a Christmas tree. And then I would have had to light up someone else like a Christmas tree._ He chuckled at his little joke, then sobered a little as he thought, _Well then, next time we should go visit someplace with a metal detector, then, shouldn't we?_

His small smile broadened into a malicious grin at the thought.

 **Guys, I really appreciate all the reviews you've sent in. It means a lot that you took the time, and I appreciate those of you who have given me pointers (boxerman, I'm mostly just looking at you). I'm trying to write the best I can, and any help is always good.**

 **Sorry these updates have been pretty randomly spaced out, but I'm pretty bogged down with life at the moment.**

 **Also, I know that this is a very short chapter, but I wanted to clear something up before I go any further. Someone brought up that they would like to see some multiple P.O.V. stuff (like in my first story), and I'm up for that if y'all are. Honestly, I was considering it already. I have a few ideas bouncing around in this crazy head of mine. Problem is, if I decide to do that, I'll have to go and rearrange some plot, and this story will take longer to finish.**

 **If you think this is a good idea, please let me know. If not, rest assured that Sarah and Casey are going to make their way into this story anyway. You will see more of them, but only Chuck's P.O.V. I'm willing to write it either way. Please let me know as soon as possible, so I can get going on whatever version y'all prefer. I need to know soon, because it will change the next chapter drastically.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi. Short pre-chapter AU. There is** ** _slightly_** **more language in this chapter. Very mild, of course. I don't use strong language in my writing, but still. Quick warning. Not that you care, probably.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck, the man or the show or anything in between.**

 **Also:**

 **Sarah's P.O.V.**

 _20 minutes earlier_

Casey sighed. "Idiot."

"Not helping, Casey," Sarah hissed at him. She glanced over as he entered the store, subtly watching the situation at the center of the store. He rolled his eyes, but she said nothing. They could argue after the trade was finished. Not that that should be too hard, since it was pretty cut and dry. Meet, trade, leave. They had pulled of much more difficult missions together. She was confident this would be easy.

She heard Chuck start to babble, trying to put together a good explanation without tripping over his words and shifted behind her wall of shelves, moving just enough to peek over the side. Chuck was hidden behind the bulk of the Hitchens' torso, but Sarah could tell he was nervous. They hadn't known each other for too long, but she still knew him well enough to recognize the tremble in his voice.

She faintly heard a deep rumble over the line, and assumed that was Hitchens talking. She looked at Casey, who was calmly studying a blender.

Sarah tuned back in to Chuck, who was saying, "... we would have already gotten you."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess so," Tony mumbled.

"Oh, he's smart, isn't he?" Sarah commented sarcastically. "I bet he graduated at the top of his class. His parents must be so proud of him. If he graduated at all." Casey let out a harsh chuckle, but Chuck didn't show that he had heard her. Which was the smart thing to do, obviously, so Sarah pushed away the feeling that something was off.

Hitchens gestured, but Sarah couldn't hear him over the line. As he spoke, a man in a suit strode into the store. Sarah raised her eyebrows at his outfit (and saw Casey do the same), but ignored him when he nodded to her and walked past to the tv section.

The store was quiet, relative to the usual noise level created by customers. Jeffster was also nowhere to be seen, which Sarah considered a lucky break. There were very few people strolling the aisles throughout the store, including Sarah and Casey, so Sarah had an unobstructed view of Chuck and Hitchens. If they hadn't been talking so quietly, she probably would have been able to hear them talking as well.

Another two men entered the store, wearing leather jackets and conversing in low tones.

Then something struck Sarah. She could no longer hear Chuck on his mike. She tapped her earpiece, as if that would suddenly fix it, but there wasn't even the slight crackle of the live mike. She saw Hitchens lean in to Chuck a little, and she knew that they were still talking, so there must have been a malfunction. She pressed her lips together. They had pretty high tech equipment, since the CIA wanted to keep their agents alive and gave them the best they could afford. Well, Sarah got some of the best, since she was one of their best. It usually didn't give out mid mission, but, Sarah supposed, there's a first time for everything.

She frowned and got Casey's attention. When he met her eyes, she gestured at her earpiece and mouthed, _I can't hear him._

Casey's eyebrows lowered. _I can't either,_ he mouthed back to her.

Sarah's heart stopped. Her eyes narrowed. She looked back at Chuck in time to see him leave the desk and head toward the back, Hitchens close behind. He didn't look to be in any danger, but it was Sarah's job to protect him, and as such, it was her job to go make sure Hitchens wasn't planning to shoot the Buy More employee.

Plus, it was extremely suspicious that both their earpieces malfunctioned at the same time.

Sarah hurried over to Casey, who was muttering something under his breath. "Casey," she said. "I'm going to go make sure Chuck isn't in trouble, okay?"

Casey pulled his earpiece out and grumbled, turning it around in his fingers. "Yeah, go ahead," he said distractedly. "Stupid piece of-"

Sarah left hers in (just in case it started working again) and began to walk purposefully after Chuck. She knew that to hurry too much would be suspicious, but she still couldn't shake the feeling that Chuck had done something stupid, or that, regardless of his interference, something was very wrong.

She nodded tersely to a motherly woman who ignored her completely. As she walked past the Nerd Herd desk, she saw Chuck's bag laying by the base of his chair. His phone sat near the top, glinting in the harsh artificial light.

Sarah sped up a bit.

"Sarah!" a loud voice crackled in her ear.

Sarah flinched, a small yelp escaping her throat. "God, calm down, it's me," the voice continued.

Sarah relaxed. "Really, Casey?" She turned to look back to where her partner was waiting.

"What?" Casey asked innocently. "I got it to work again."

"Can you hear Chuck?" Sarah asked.

A pause. "No, only you."

Sarah cursed. "Okay, I'm going after him." Casey said something else, but it didn't register. Sarah stopped and turned to look directly at him. She opened her mouth to ask him to repeat himself, but she faltered to a stop. Her narrowed eyes scanned the store. A chill ran up her spine.

"Casey," she said slowly. "Something doesn't feel right."

Casey snorted quietly. "What do you mean? Are your 'spidey senses' tingling or something?"

Sarah said nothing.

"Come on, Sarah," Casey prompted. "It was a joke. You don't have spidey sense, and there's nothing wrong- hey, watch it! You blind or something?" Casey sighed frustratedly. "Can't even glance up from their frickin' screens every once in awhile to make sure they aren't about to run into someone."

"Casey!" Sarah interrupted. "Shut up and pay attention!"

"To what?" Casey hissed. "There is nothing wrong!"

"Look around," Sarah insisted. "Look at the people."

"What about the people?" Casey asked, annoyed.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Just do what I said and tell me whether any of them look like traditional customers. Than you can tell me where all the store employees are."

Casey muttered something under his breath. "Fine. There's a woman looking at a mouse. There's the moron who's glued to his phone. There's the moron in the suit. There's the two morons in leather jackets. There's another woman who's probably a moron. Oh, look, more morons in leather jackets." Casey paused. "Actually, there are a lot of morons in leather jackets."

"You see what's on their shoulders?" Sarah asked as she slowly began to reach for her waist where a pistol was hidden.

"What's on-?" Casey repeated. "Uh, no…" His already deep voice dropped even lower. "Crap."

Sarah nodded, even though Casey couldn't see the movement. She wrapped her fingers around the handle of her pistol. "We need to get to Chuck. Right now."

"Uh huh," Casey agreed. "You get to Bartowski. I'll take care of this."

"Casey," Sarah warned. "There are civilians in here."

"You think I don't know that?" Casey asked, irritated. After a pause, he finally promised, "I'll be careful. Just make sure Bartowski doesn't mess everything up."

Sarah nodded. "I'm on my way."

"Are you?" someone said from behind her, bemused.

Sarah whipped around, yanking her gun up to point at the man behind her, immediately recognizing him as the man who had first entered in a suit. He was only a few inches taller than her and had to weigh less than two hundred pounds, but his gun was already aimed at her chest. His dark hair was slicked back to his scalp, and he wore a suit jacket that matched the other few men in the store. On his shoulder was a design of three diagonal slashes, like an animal had clawed at him. It was the emblem of Hitchens' mob. It was pretty understated, compared to the skulls and guns of other mob groups, but it was well known.

The man chuckled. His eyes glinted dangerously. "Sarah, is it? I've waited for quite a while to meet you."

Sarah kept her pistol trained on his chest. "I can't say I feel the same."

The man's smile never faltered, although it never reached his dark eyes. "What a shame." He nodded to someone behind her, and another man walked up behind her. He didn't touch her, but he stood just behind her shoulder, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Why are you here?" Sarah asked, mostly just to buy time while her mind whirled.

"Aren't you going to ask my name?" the man responded. "Or maybe at least put down the gun? It's very rude of you."

Sarah's grip tightened.

The man sighed. "Fine," He holstered his own gun and shoved his hands in his pockets, obviously not fazed by the gun barrel now aimed at his face. "I guess I'll start." He gestured toward the door behind him, and a shorter man with darker hair started toward the door to the back room, where Chuck and Hitchens were. "My name is Henry," the man said with a little bow. "I have no immediate family, I like guns, and my favorite color is brown. Now it's your turn."

He raised his eyebrows. As he waited, a man dragged something heavy in beside them and took his post behind Sarah. She glanced at it and gasped quietly. An unconscious Casey was deposited on the ground, his gun gone from its holster. His blue eyes were closed. There was a large bruise forming on his cheek.

Sarah licked her lips and focused on Henry again. She hated him with every fibre of her being. He was smug, he had a stupid little smirk, and he was threatening Chuck's safety, which made Sarah's blood boil.

Not to mention that he was also threatening her life, which had a hand in the rage she was struggling to contain. She let her eyes quickly take in the situation around her. Two men behind her, two more at the door, who knew how many more on the way. Casey was now useless.

She swallowed, willing her voice to stay steady. "I'm Sarah. I'm going to shoot all of you. Then I'm going to go shoot Hitchens and get the hell out of here."

Henry laughed, echoed by the men at Sarah's shoulders. "That sounds fun," he said. "By the way you're holding that gun, I'd say that you might even get off a few shots before you get shot yourself? Being optimistic, of course." He withdrew his hand from his pocket to run it over his carefully styled hair. He made eye contact with a man behind Sarah and nodded. The man shouldered into her and, before she could react, ripped the gun from her hands. Sarah stumbled at the suddenness of the movement.

Behind him, the man who had been sent to the door to the back tripped and slammed into an aisle. His weight pushed it off balance enough to send it teetering on edge before eventually crashing into the next one. Four loud crashes filled the air, shattering the quiet. Sarah could only hope that Chuck would realize that it was a bad sign and get the hell out of dodge, but that was wishful thinking.

Henry tensed, anger clouding his eyes for a second. "Rizzo, you idiot," he called. "Try not to shoot yourself opening the door, okay?"

The man -Rizzo- nodded sheepishly and hurried to the door. He grabbed the handle, but it was locked. He banged on the door and called for Tony impatiently. "Open up before I kick the door in!" Sarah somehow doubted the small man could do so, but kept this to herself.

"Anyway," Henry said, drawing Sarah's attention back to himself. "I was thinking that maybe, and this is just an idea, maybe you could tell us where your base is? It would be so very helpful."

Sarah gritted her teeth. "Like hell I will," she spat.

"You are quite the stubborn one, aren't you?" Henry asked, still infuriatingly calm. "That's alright. I'm sure your friend in the back will be willing to tell me what I need."

As he said the words, the door Rizzo was pounding on opened with a squeak. Hitchens stood in the opening. "Hey-" he started, but was interrupted by a commotion behind him. He spun, then shouted, "Hey! Get back here!" He took off at a sprint, Rizzo close behind him.

Henry rubbed his face haggardly. "I swear, I am surrounded by idiots," he muttered. The men behind Sarah took a step forward, and Henry let one go, keeping one back. "No, Tony can catch him," he said confidently to the one who stayed behind. "After all, the kid's a pretty scrawny thing, isn't he? He won't be hard to get. And Tony can shoot him if he has to. We can work with what we got," he finished, glancing meaningfully as Sarah.

Sarah's vision blurred and tinted red. "Don't you dare touch him," she growled.

Henry smiled condescendingly at her. "And what are you going to do about it?" he asked. "I have more men outside right now, and a dozen more on the way. You can't possibly-"

Rizzo jogged back into the room, his face red.

Henry stopped and turned to look at him. "Did you catch the kid?"

Rizzo shrugged. "Tony'll get him."

Henry blinked slowly. "I'm sorry, did you say that he _will_ catch him? As in, he's still chasing him?"

Rizzo nodded hesitantly. "Yes?"

Henry's voice grew dark. "And why aren't you out there helping him?"

Rizzo backpedaled. "Tony's faster than I am. He could catch him easier than I could." His heel hit a fallen shelf and he stopped, his eyes wide in fear.

Henry shook his head. "Why we even let you in, I will never understand. If you can't catch him, you just shoot him, you moron. A dead witness is better than an escaped one, wouldn't you agree?"

All the casual mentions of shooting Chuck made Sarah's blood boil. She quickly took inventory. One man still behind her, two ignoring her. Casey was unconscious, and there was no way she would be able to drag him out. She would have to come back for him later, which she completely planned on doing, if she got out. Hopefully, Chuck was out too, but, as much as she hated herself for thinking it, he knew she couldn't worry about him. He would have to fend for himself for the time being. She had no gun, but she wasn't restrained, and she had to get away before reinforcements arrived.

Henry was now yelling at Rizzo, who was shouting right back, nose to nose, completely ignoring Sarah. She took a deep breath and took one last glance at Casey before checking the man's position behind her. Then she clenched her fist and whipped it back behind her. It smacked into the man's nose with a loud crunch, and he staggered. She whirled and kicked him between the legs with as much power as she could muster, fueled by her fury.

The man let out a squeak and collapsed to the ground, curling into the fetal position and rocking slightly. Sarah hurdled him and sprinted toward the doors. Henry shouted a profanity and took off after her, Rizzo close behind. She brushed past Chuck's desk and was almost to the doors when she saw the van parked outside.

She skidded to a stop, her mind whirling. Those must have been Henry's men. If she ran outside, she knew she would end up right into the middle of a great big pack of them, even though she couldn't see any at the moment.

She spun and ran to the side, just barely evading Henry's grasping fingers. Rizzo was already panting and perspiring heavily, slowing to watch the chase.

Sarah darted behind a row of shelves and took a few sharp turns, desperately trying to think of a way to get out. Henry was snarling behind her, knocking over displays as he tried to keep up to her. Sarah slid on the slick tile a few times, but not enough to lose too much of her small lead. She considered just heading back out the door Chuck had escaped through, but she didn't want to risk running into Tony or the other man who had followed after.

She broke out into the middle aisle again and plowed into Rizzo. He fell to the ground with a cry of indignation and surprise. Sarah tried to leap over him, but his hand snaked up and grabbed her ankle, pulling her to the ground roughly. She frantically kicked at his hand and face until his grip loosened and she was able to break free.

She scrambled to her feet, but Henry flew out into the aisle behind her, his carefully styled hair now a disheveled mess. He tackled her back to the ground and struggled to pin her wrists to the ground. After succeeding in holding her down, he straddled her waist and let out a loud breath. "God, I haven't had to do _that_ in a damn long time," he said breathlessly.

Sarah didn't respond and tried to rip her hands free.

"Ah," Henry reprimanded her. "Enough struggling. I've won, fair and square."

His smug tone ignited something in Sarah, something she hadn't let out in a long time, not since she had met Chuck and learned that the world wasn't quite as lonely with him in it. An intense hatred bloomed in her heart and spread through her body, filling her veins with fire. It something extremely bitter that Sarah usually tried to keep under control. It came from years of being ignored and mocked, years of being "different" and being under the pressure of being the only responsible one. It was something that she kept locked deep down, but it sometimes came out to play in situations like this. Henry was scorning her, deriding her, underestimating her, and it brought back dark memories. Sarah's crystal blue eyes hardened, and she stilled.

Henry cocked his head and said mockingly, "Ooh, I think she's angry. I'm real scared."

Sarah's lips drew back to reveal white teeth. Her jaw tightened almost painfully. " _Get. Off,_ " she growled.

"Or what?" Henry asked, obviously enjoying it. "Rizzo, get over here and help me cuff her."

Before Rizzo could move, Sarah jerked her knee up again, nailing Henry between the legs. He flinched and let out a less-than-manly squeal, not able to keep his iron grip on his captive's hands. Sarah yanked her hands up and crossed them violently, slamming Henry's wrists against each other and freeing herself. She shoved him off of her and stood, but Henry got to his knees and tried to grab her again. "You _bitch_!" he hissed.

Sarah immediately whirled, looking at him in fury. "You should have stayed down," she said darkly.

Henry's eyes widened imperceptibly. "What-"

Sarah kicked him in the face.

He fell to the ground, but didn't stay there. He tried to get up again, but Sarah planted another kick between his ribs. He grunted in pain, and Rizzo shouted at Sarah to get her attention.

Sarah strode towards him, and he tried to back away, but Sarah reached out and grabbed his shirt collar. She pulled him toward her and only let go after jabbing him in the nose. There was a sickening crunch, and and Rizzo collapsed immediately, cradling his face.

Sarah turned to see Henry standing again. He aimed a punch at her face, but it was half-hearted, and Sarah batted it aside easily. She brought her fist around and hit Henry in the side of his head, knocking him off balance and making his ears ring. As he stumbled, Sarah kicked him in the other side of his head, then grabbed it and forced it down as she brought her knee up. They connected with another awful crunch, but Henry only staggered back, refusing to surrender.

Sarah didn't give him the chance to, anyway. She landed two quick jabs in succession, in his jaw and eye. He still tried to return the favor, but Sarah punched him in his abdomen, hitting his solar plexus and knocking all the breath out of him. He finally fell and cracked his head on the tile. He didn't move.

Sarah shook out her fists, the adrenaline high slowly filtering out of her system. She was breathing hard, and, as she returned to her senses, she realized how badly she had beaten Henry. His face was a mess of blood and swelling, and he probably had a concussion. Not to mention Rizzo was still crying behind her.

She tried to clear her head and backed away. She could deal with this later. Right now, she needed to get out of there. By now, Chuck was either safely hidden, captured, or dead. If he were captured, Sarah assumed that Hitchens would have brought him in by now. That only left two options, and one of them was too horrible to consider, so she didn't.

She looked out the front door again, where the van was still parked. She hadn't seen anyone get out (she had been a bit busy), but they had probably seen Chuck and joined the chase.

As she continued to think about that, the odds grew worse and worse in her mind, so, once again, she forced herself to stop thinking about it.

She needed to reach Castle and let the General know what had happened. She could send reinforcements and fix this whole mess. Hopefully.

Sarah made her way over to Casey and crouched. "Casey!" she said, shaking his shoulder. He didn't respond. He was out cold. Sarah rubbed her forehead. She could probably drag him out, given enough time, but she couldn't have more than a few minutes at best, and Casey had to weigh double what she did.

As she considered her options, she heard raucous laughing outside the store. She looked out the doors to see the faint outlines of three more men approaching the store. She spared one more look at her partner, then whispered, "I'm sorry, Casey. I'll come back for you, I promise." Then she stood, and, with a jolt of guilt, ran toward the break room that housed the secret entrance to Castle.

 **Okay. There that is. Still doing okay? I got a pretty apathetic response from you guys, mostly "Oh, I don't care, you can do whatever, I guess." Real helpful. Thanks a lot.**

 **I'm kidding. I decided to do it anyway 'cause more P.O.V.'s means more opinions and takes on the story, which is a good thing. I think. Also, Sarah's awesome. This chapter was a bit darker toward the end than I originally intended. I have no idea where all that came from. I guess there wasn't enough angst yet? I don't know.**

 **Anyway, school has officially started, and, as a junior, I have such subjects as physics and precalculus, both carefully calculated to create hell for those unlucky students who have to take them, so updates might become a little more sporadic. (Sorry!)**

 **All reviews are appreciated. Good luck with your own various school years. Or jobs, I guess, if any of you are past the academic learning stages.**

 **Enough rambling. Thanks for reading.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck, the man or the show or anything in between.**

 **Chuck P.O.V.**

The doors opened with a cheerful _ding!_ and Chuck staggered into Castle. He made his way to the main room and sat heavily at the head of the table. Now that he was out of danger, his adrenaline was dropping, and the full weight of his injuries was hitting him. His side was obviously the most worrying, but the bullet had only grazed him. It still hurt like hell, but it wasn't life threatening or anything. His hands stung from his hard landing earlier, and he might have sprained an ankle at some point, but he considered himself lucky to have gotten out of there at all.

Chuck leaned back and sighed heavily. He fished the flashdrive out of his pocket and looked at it. It seemed too small and innocent to contain something so important. He chewed his lip pensively, then painfully got to his feet and walked over to the desk. He sat in front of the computer and powered it up, then inserted the flash drive. It loaded quickly, and Chuck selected the only file on it.

As soon as it opened, Chuck's head exploded. He flashed on every single name and picture on the file, and there were easily several dozen of them. He scrolled down, taking in the names of criminals wanted for everything from theft to murder to credit fraud. He jolted to a stop when he saw Tony's picture. Tony Hitchens, suspected for the murder of three bank clerks during the theft of over eight hundred thousand dollars. A chill ran down Chuck's spine. He had just been casually talking to him. Tony could have just whipped out a weapon at any point and shot him in the face without feeling the slightest tinge of remorse.

He reached the end of the file and fell back, breathing heavily. "Well," he said to himself, "at least he wasn't lying about this being the real deal. I wasn't shot for nothing."

Now for the next step; he needed to call General Beckman and let her know what was happening. He began to get up, then stopped in his tracks as he realized something. He didn't really know how to call General Beckman. He'd seen Casey and Sarah do it before, obviously, but usually she was already on screen by the time he got there.

He looked over at the tv screen. He could probably figure it out, with time, but he didn't feel like he had the required time. He needed to get help, and he needed it fast, before Tony and his crew killed someone.

Then a thought struck him. At the beginning of the mission, he had been given a phone that he was supposed to hand over to Tony when he received the information they needed. That phone was to be used to call the general. Since Tony obviously didn't know her number, it must already be on the phone.

He dug it out of his pocket and paused for a moment. Its case was scratched and dented, no doubt from Chuck's evasive maneuvers earlier. "Please, please don't be broken," he muttered, then flipped it open and pressed the power button. After a tense second, it lit up with a soothing little sequence of notes.

"Oh, thank God," Chuck said under his breath. He went to the contacts menu, where he found only one name: CIA. "Well, that's simple," he said to himself, then he selected the name. It began to ring, and he put it up to his ear.

Almost instantly, he heard General Beckman pick up. "Hello?" she asked, her voice slightly deeper and more serious.

"General Beckman!" he exclaimed. "That- that is you, right?"

There was a pause. "Bartowski!" the general said, annoyed. "What are you doing? Where is the contact? You should have called by now!"

"Well, the contact just tried to shoot me, so I decided not to give him the phone. Was that a bad idea?"

Chuck could hear the frown in the general's voice. "What do you mean? What's happening?"

"Well-" Chuck started.

"What did you do?" the general interrupted.

Chuck stopped. "Wait," he said indignantly. "Why do you assume it was my fault? Maybe Casey accidentally shot someone. I'm sure it wouldn't be his first time. It probably wouldn't even be on purpose."

"The hypothetical way that you are talking in tells me that this is just that- hypothetical. Now what happened?" General Beckman insisted.

"I think you'll be happy to know that it actually wasn't my fault, nor was it the fault of anyone on my team," Chuck informed her, slightly proud.

"Then what happened?" General Beckman shouted.

"Um, well, you see, that guy Tony? The one who was supposed to help us?"

"Yes?" the general prompted.

"He didn't actually help us."

"What do you mean?" she asked flatly.

"Well, he brought the information, but he also brought several cohorts with guns. He had several weapons of his own too."

"What?"

"Yeah," Chuck agreed. "It was pretty scary. I got shot."

"What?!"

"It's okay, though. I outran him and hid in the freezer entrance to Castle."

"WHAT?!"

"Listen, General. You're getting kind of repetitive." Chuck glanced down at his shirt, which he was starting to bleed through. He swallowed and forced his mind off the fact that he was bleeding profusely. "Um, do you think you could maybe walk me through some first aid or something? My shirt's much redder than it used to be."

The general cursed. "Chuck, you're hiding in Castle? Where are Casey and Sarah?"

Chuck thought about it. "Oh. Uh, I don't- I don't really know. Where they are." He frowned as he realized that he hadn't even thought about Sarah or Casey. They might be captured or wounded or even dead, and he hadn't even spared a thought to their safety.

The general cursed again. "We need to send backup." She took the phone from her ear, and Chuck heard muffled shouts to someone on the other end. "Bartowski, don't do anything stupid," she said back into the phone. "We're sending help. Just wait for them to arrive, okay? We'll get you out of there."

"General?" Chuck asked. "I think they took over the Buy More. Or something like that. I know there were guys with guns out front. It can't be anything good."

Chuck was becoming impressed by the general's repertoire of curse words. "Stay out of the way, okay?" she ordered. "Just don't get caught."

Chuck shrugged, immediately regretting the motion because of the pain that shot through him. "Oh! Wait!" he suddenly said loudly.

The general groaned. "What? I need to go."

"I have the information Tony brought."

There was a pause. "Wait. He brought it?"

"Yeah."

"And you have it?"

"Yup."

"In your possession? Right now?"

"Uh, yeah, I do."

"Stay. There," General Beckman reiterated. "Don't get caught, don't get killed, don't lose that information. Help is on the way."

The connection ended, and Chuck closed the phone. He set it on the desk in front of him and leaned back, staring at the screen in front of him. "Okay," he murmured to himself. "Right. Just… don't get caught. Or shot. Heh, that rhymed." He chuckled softly, then frowned. "Okay, that was stupid. Stop that."

He forced himself to his feet. "To the first aid, I guess." He tried to walk forward, but his vision started swimming as soon as he took his first step. Disoriented, he tried to lean against the table again, but he missed and lost his balance. He desperately tried to stay upright, but his dazed brain was working against him. He collapsed, smacking his head on the corner of the table as he fell.

He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

 **Sarah P.O.V.**

Sarah didn't stop running until she finally saw the entrance to Castle ahead of her. It's outline was highlighted in the dark hallway by the light that shone through from beyond it. She slowed to a halt in front of it, panting lightly. Her knuckles were still throbbing from colliding with Henry's face multiple times, and she was sure they would end up bruised, but she knew she was lucky to escape alive. She could handle a few bumps and bruises.

She placed her hand on the scanner at eye level on the wall. A green light ran up and down the screen, then identified her as Sarah Walker. The door lifted, and the harsh artificial light that accosted her eyes was blinding at first. She shielded her eyes with her hand and quickly darted through the door. It was programmed to close quickly, in case the user needed a quick getaway.

Sure enough, it lowered again almost as soon as she stepped through and closed with a hiss and a clunk. Sarah blinked, waiting for her eyes to grow accustomed to the light, and eventually recognized her surroundings. She was in one of the back rooms of Castle, near the holding cells. After reorienting herself, she made her way through the halls and found the nearest bathroom.

She flicked on the light and studied herself in the mirror. As she had predicted, her knuckles were red and bruised. Her blonde hair had been ripped out of its neat ponytail and was hanging loose, just brushing past her shoulders. Her makeup was smudged all over; a dark bruise was forming on her chin where she had hit it on the floor when she had been tackled by Henry. But, overall, she had definitely come out worse before. The fight had been pretty one sided, after all. She had dealt out most of the punishment.

She turned on the faucet and splashed some water on her face, washing off all the grime from rolling around on the floor of the Buy More. She dried off and took a breath, then withdrew her phone from her pocket. Thankfully, luckily, it had survived the altercation in her pocket without falling out. There was a small scratch on the screen, but nothing too bad.

Sarah considered calling Chuck, but decided that there was a more important call to make first, so she punched in the numbers she'd had memorized for years.

She rang through to voicemail.

Sarah was taken aback. She had never reached voicemail on this line before. It almost always picked up within three rings. Not to be arrogant, but Sarah was one of the best agents they had, which came with some perks, like second chances and not being put through to voicemail. She didn't really know what to do now. If the general wasn't going to pick up, then she supposed she would have to do it all on her own.

She didn't know where Chuck was, Casey was unconscious and in enemy territory, and the CIA wasn't picking up, so reinforcements wouldn't be coming anytime soon.

As she was considering calling again, her phone rang. Without even looking to see who it was, she answered and said, breathlessly, "Yes?"

"Who is this?" The general sounded very irritated. "I really can't talk right now, so it had better be important!"

"General?" Sarah asked.

She heard an audible sigh of relief. "Walker, thank God!" the general exclaimed. "Where are you?"

"Castle," Sarah answered. "But that's not important. What's important is-"

"Hitchens betrayed us, yes, I know," General Beckman interrupted. "I'm trying to dispatch someone right now, but they _aren't picking up_. Who doesn't pick up when the _director of the CIA_ calls you?"

"Wait, how did you know that?" Sarah asked, taken aback.

"Chuck told me. Where are you?" Beckman asked again.

"Uh, Castle," Sarah answered. "Is Chuck okay?"

"You're in Castle? Good. Where's Casey?" Beckman ignored her question.

Sarah struggled to keep annoyance out of her voice. "Henry got him."

"Henry?"

Sarah quickly explained everything, about the malfunction and Chuck disappearing into the back, how Henry stopped Sarah from following, how Casey was unconscious, and how she escaped. She left out small details, like how all Henry's group had to do to infiltrate the store was walk in.

Beckman cursed. "We have less time than we thought. Walker, you have to get Casey out of there immediately."

Sarah sighed, aggravated. "Of course I will. But you said you talked to Chuck?"

Beckman paused. "Wait, you haven't seen him? You said you're in Castle, right?"

"Yes," Sarah said slowly.

"He's in there too."

Sarah hung up and sprinted through the door.

 **Oh no! Heh. Hehheh. Heh.**

 **Sorry, I know it's short, but hopefully that doesn't make it bad. I've come down with a case of writer's block, and life is a thing. Even with the delays, thank you so much for all the support y'all have given me! There have a few reviews in particular that made me feel like I was on top of the world, and I really appreciate that you think it worth your time and attention.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck, the man or the show or anything in between.**

 **Sarah P.O.V.**

"Chuck!" Sarah called. She cannoned through the door and tore down the hallway toward the central room. She slammed through another door and eventually entered into the main room. She stood facing the stairs. She glanced swiftly up at the door and did a double take, frozen where she stood. The door was cracked open.

Sarah cursed under her breath and tried to draw her weapon, but her fingers closed around empty space at her waist. She let out another quiet curse. Her pistol was on the floor of the Buy More, pretty close to Chuck's desk.

So, she instead readied her fists, and started to creep forward carefully, keeping the open door in the corner of her eye. She walked softly toward the conference room, every muscle taut with balled up energy. She put her back against the wall just next to the open space that led to the main table. She took a deep breath, then shot out from her cover, clenched fist raised.

Her eyes darted around, hastily taking in the scene before her. There was no one there. Other than a few disturbed chairs, everything looked the same. Sarah let out a breath she wasn't aware she was holding and relaxed her shoulders, then she promptly turned on her heel.

She wasted no time in searching the rest of Castle. She went through every corridor and thoroughly checked every room and hiding place imaginable. She quickly searched into the armory, and every gun was in its place, just as Casey had meticulously left it. Light glinted dully off the barrels aligned on each wall.

After she had convinced herself there was no one lurking in the back halls, she returned to the conference room. The tv screen was blank, powered off. Sarah absently pushed the chair nearest her back into its place parked under the table. She turned to go up the stairs. Her mind was whirling, trying to absorb all that had just happened. The general had told her that reinforcements were on the way, and she knew she should probably just wait for them before doing anything stupid. She was smart; she knew that going in alone was a horrible idea.

She reached the open door, closed it, and leaned against it tiredly. If she at least had Chuck, she could have another, hopefully less frazzled, mind thinking through all of this with her. Chuck occasionally had good ideas, and he always seemed to come up with his best when everything seemed like it had gone to hell. Of course, he also tended to act on these impulses alone and without any consultation before throwing himself headfirst into the line of fire. It was just like him. No matter how impressive he might be sometimes, he didn't think very clearly when bullets were flying.

Sarah stopped dead in the midst of these thoughts. In her panic to make sure that no one had found their base of operations, she had let the general's information slip her mind. Chuck had been in here, somewhere, at sometime. She pushed off the door and took the stairs two at a time, landing on the floor with cat-like grace. She spun a little, trying to think of somewhere he could be.

Her eyes landed on the computer next to the table. In her haste, she hadn't realized that the screensaver was on. Her eyebrows lowered in confusion. Someone had turned it on, but left it running.

She approached it, eyes locked on the monitor. She stopped in front of it and touched the mouse. The screen woke up, and the screensaver disappeared, revealing a document. Sarah squinted as she read a name: Jacob Delle. Next to his name was a small picture of a smiling man with close cut brown hair and striking blue eyes. She read the small print under his name quickly.

"Oh, god," she muttered. Multiple charges of theft and petty crime, but never arrested. Suspected of being an accomplice to a major bank theft. Sarah scrolled down and saw more names and pictures, all of major and minor criminals. When she reached the bottom of the document, she went back up to the top and saw more pictures, including Henry and Hitchens.

Sarah scowled. She needed to call the general and tell her. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket, where she had stashed it earlier and began to dial. She turned as she did so and looked up as she pressed call. She raised the phone to her ear and waited, turning to lean against the edge of the desk.

Then she froze. The general picked up immediately. "Walker?" she demanded impatiently.

Sarah didn't reply.

"Walker!" she repeated. "What is it?"

Sarah's mouth opened and closed noiselessly. She remained frozen for another split second before and hanging up on her superior and dropping her phone on the table behind her.

"Chuck?" Her voice trembled.

There was no reply.

 **I apologize for the length, but another chapter should be up pretty soon. Put the two together and you might get a decently sized chapter! Anyway, the writer's block is still in full effect, so this is the best I can do at the moment. It's a little pathetic, I'll admit. Over a thousand less words than my previous chapters, but hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things soon. Please, let me know how I'm doing so I can fix anything I may be doing wrong.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck, the man or the show.

 **Chuck P.O.V.**

"Chuck!" a desperate voice said. It was cloudy and distant, just blurry enough to make it impossible to know whose voice it was.

"Chuck, damn it! Wake up!" Whoever it was, she was bossy. Her voice was now clear enough to be able to distinguish that it was the voice of a woman. He knew that much. But he couldn't quite place it. It was familiar, but not so much so that he could remember who it belonged to.

"Chuck, I swear, if you die on me, I will kill you."

Chuck forced himself to swallow. "That doesn't make any sense," he managed, his voice scratchy.

Sarah let out a breath loudly. "Chuck, thank God."

Chuck cracked open his eyes. One of them was sticky and gummy, something keeping it from opening completely. Through his right eye, he was able to make out a blurry face. "Oh, hey, Sarah," he muttered.

"Chuck, you almost scared me half to death!" Sarah complained. "What happened?"

Chuck blinked hard, trying to clear away the gunk on his left eye. "Uh," he groaned, long and low.

Sarah didn't let him answer. Insead, she she stood suddenly and rushed out of his line of vision. "Sarah?" Chuck whined groggily, lifting his hand weakly. His brain raced, trying to figure out what was happening. He brushed the back of his hand over his eye, trying to dislodge the stubborn gunk and discovered that it was dried blood.

"Oh," was all he could say.

He heard Sarah's footsteps nearing him. She knelt by his head and set something down beside her knee. Chuck craned his head, trying to see what she had brought, but a knife of hot pain shot through his forehead. He tensed painfully, a low whimper forcing its way out of his mouth. Sarah took his head in her hands and carefully propped him up on something soft.

"Just stay still, okay?" she told him. Chuck tried to nod and sent another jolt of pain knifing through his head. Sarah sighed. "Just stop moving," she repeated.

Chuck followed her advice this time. Sarah reached for the table and grabbed a rag. She wetted it with something in the box by her leg and began to carefully wipe off Chuck's face, starting with his forehead and eye. The rag was cool and felt wonderful against his heated skin, although the silence highlighted the pounding headache that was centered over his right temple.

A minute passed quietly. Chuck struggled to keep his eyes off of Sarah's face as it hovered just over his own. Her eyebrows were scrunched together in concentration, keeping her hand steady. She absently placed her free hand on Chuck's chest, for lack of a better place to rest it, and Chuck's heart lept into his throat.

Sarah was oblivious. "So, what exactly happened to you?" she asked.

Chuck wetted his lips. "Uh, I fell."

Sarah paused and looked at him. "You fell?" she asked incredulously. "And all this happened?"

Chuck grinned, embarrassed, his cheeks heating up. "I hit the table," he said, gesturing weakly to the corner above him. Sarah studied the table for a few seconds before returning to the task at hand. "Yeah, I see that," she said. Her hand was still resting on Chuck's chest.

Chuck swallowed. "I, uh, don't know if you had noticed, but…" He trailed off, sure that Sarah had in fact noticed and he should just let her do her thing.

"Noticed what?" Sarah asked, wiping the last of the blood off Chuck's face.

"Oh, it's no big deal," Chuck hedged. "I mean, it's just that I got shot too, and it feels like I ingested fire, and I wasn't sure if you were planning on-"

Sarah dropped the rag. "What?" she asked. "Where?"

Chuck took the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, revealing a small hole a few inches from his navel. Sarah cursed. "Damn it, Chuck! Why didn't you tell me first?"

Chuck shrugged jerkily. "I dunno, I guess I thought you had noticed it."

"I should have," Sarah muttered. "I got too distracted by your head. Damn it."

Chuck tried to reassure her, but she ignored him and rustled through the box, muttering under her breath. She pulled something out and kept it out of his view. "So what happened?" she asked again, keeping her voice steady. Chuck tried to do the same as he related the story of what happened when he brought Tony back to the storage room. Sarah was messing with something, but Chuck couldn't see it.

Sarah set down whatever she had in her hands and leaned over to unbutton Chuck's shirt. She seemed so matter-of-fact about it, not even pausing to warn him. Chuck's breath hitched, but he managed to finish his story. Sarah's face was burning a strange, slight shade of red, but she said nothing. Chuck swallowed the lump in his throat and finished his story. Sarah frowned. "So, to summarize, Tony shot you, then you gave yourself head trauma?"

Chuck nodded slowly. "Yeah, basically."

Sarah sighed. "Chuck, this is why we don't leave you alone anymore."

Chuck propped himself up on his elbows to protest. It hurt like hell, and he was about to lay back down when he saw what Sarah was working on. "Sarah," he asked tremulously. "What is that?"

Sarah looked up, confused. "Uh, a needle? I have to stitch you up, you're bleeding a lot."

"A needle?" Chuck asked, panic choking up his voice.

"Yes?" Sarah responded slowly. "Why-oh. Needles," she repeated, suddenly understanding.

Chuck's head spun, and he collapsed on the floor.

Sarah dropped the needle and checked his pulse quickly. After assuring herself that he still had a heartbeat, she leaned back and rubbed her forehead. "Chuck," she said to herself as she finished threading the needle. "You really need to get over needles."

 **Heeeey, guys. I told you, these last two chapters could together make an actual chapter. Sorry about the length, but soccer season's the best. Anyhoo, I'm trying to write quickly. Please be patient. And, thanks for all your support. It means the world to me.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Side note: For those of you confused last chapter (really just one of you), Chuck is afraid of needles. No, I did not make this up. It is a thing in the show. Chuck is deathly afraid of them (see Chuck vs the Beefcake, in which Chuck tries to be awesome for Sarah and withstand torture only to faint at the sight of a needle), ergo the fainting and stuff. For those of you who were not confused last chapter, kudos to you.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck, the man or the show.**

 **Sarah P.O.V.**

Thankfully, Chuck was out cold for the entire operation. He would constantly mumble nonsense under his breath that just about drove Sarah crazy while she was trying to concentrate, but he never woke up. At least she didn't have to deal with his irrational fear of needles.

After stitching him up, she had to peel off the rest of his shirt, which was by this point completely soaked in blood. The amount Chuck had lost was enough to make Sarah nervous, but he was still breathing steadily. After cleaning and stitching, she pressed a pad of gauze to the wound. She had to awkwardly roll him slightly to each side repeatedly so she could put a wrap around his midsection.

He was much heavier than Sarah had expected, and she ended up almost dropping him once or twice, but he sustained no more head trauma, so she considered the operation to be successful.

After rolling out the last of the wrap and securing it snugly, she took a deep breath and relaxed. She repositioned the blanket under Chuck's head, careful not to touch the side of his head that was injured, and returned to cleaning it. It wasn't above his hairline, so she didn't have to give him an impromptu haircut, something she was sure he would be happy about.

It didn't need stitches, either, so she wrapped a pad over it in some more gauze and replaced the blanket under his head with a new clean one, then sat back and watched him breathe. He looked almost childish when he slept, all the stress and worry gone from his face. She knew it was extremely cheesy, but he looked adorable when he slept. She couldn't help but smile as she studied his face.

But then she realized that she was staring creepily at her unconscious coworker while, a few hundred yards away, her first partner was also unconscious in the aforementioned coworker's place of work, which was also taken by a representative of the mob. The matter of how cute Chuck may or may not be while he was dead to the world with both a gunshot wound and a possible concussion was not important and could wait to be considered some other time at her own leisure.

Sarah got to her feet and stepped over Chuck, who was mumbling something under his breath about Morgan and a grilled cheese sandwich.

She would never understand what went on in that crazy mind of his.

Sarah made her way to the head of the table and sat heavily in the chair there. She made to pull out her pistol again, and again realized that she didn't have it anymore. It had become such a normal instinct that she had found herself doing this multiple times since she had escaped.

She cursed under her breath and stood. She headed toward Casey's beloved arsenal and punched in the code on the keypad on the wall to her right. The glass door slid up silently, and Sarah stepped in. She passed by several guns as long as her entire arm, shoulder to fingers. They were racked up on the wall, lovingly polished to a shine. She passed by a few submachine guns and even a few blades that Casey didn't really use, but still kept clean and bright.

She passed all of these and went straight for the pistols. She considered them for a few seconds before choosing one, a compact, heavy one with a large magazine. She stuck it in its usual place on her hip and grabbed another one. She wouldn't be disarmed so easily this time.

On the way out of the armory, she glanced at the clock. It was after two; she had been in Castle for over an hour. It didn't feel like it, but she supposed her mind had been preoccupied by other things. She went back to the table and sat once more. She picked up the remote to the large tv in front of her and powered it on.

While it was mostly used for surveillance and communicating with the general, it was also just a normal tv with normal channels. Sarah had once found Casey watching the Hallmark channel, but he protested that he had just been flipping around. Although that didn't quite make sense, since it had been the middle of the day, when all the hunting shows and other stuff like that, the only stuff Casey owned up to watching, was never showing, but Sarah had let it slide.

It was already playing local news channel, where the camera was trained on the Buy More. There was a barricade of police cars and other official vehicles parked in front of the store, lights flashing, sirens off. A woman news anchor was speaking over the footage, talking about a possible terrorist attack.

"As of right now," she was saying, "there have been no reports of what has happened since the first report of a group of armed men entering the local Buy More." The camera cut to the news anchor. "If you're just joining us, you may be surprised that these men chose the Buy More, and you are not alone. Numerous theories have been posited as to why they would choose this store over one of its competing, more successful rivals, but we can be grateful that it wasn't the site of another shooting, as any customers that were in the store have been allowed to escape.

"These escaped customers are mostly unharmed, except for a broken wrist from a fall. These customers have been sent to the hospital to be sure that they are unhurt, but they have no helpful information about the masked men. However, not all of the Buy More employees have emerged from the building. All but two have reported their safety. On top of this, apparently another employee from a nearby store has been reported missing. We aren't sure whether this is due to the attack or if it's a coincidence, but we are led to believe the worst.

"No terrorist groups as of now have claimed responsibility for this attack. We have no information on the missing employees, and the culprits have locked down the store and are

mostly staying out of sight. For now, all we can do is wait and hope for the best."

Sarah turned down the volume on the television. It had flipped back to a view of the Buy More. Other than the ring of emergency vehicles creating a semicircle in the parking lot and the crowd of bystanders watching from a safe distance, the Buy More looked more or less the same as always.

She dropped the remote on the table and slouched in her chair. As she watched the news anchor pretend to look legitimately worried, a wave of exhaustion hit her like a ton of bricks. Her eyelids began to droop, suddenly impossibly heavy. She tried to keep them open, but her brain was becoming sluggish, struggling to process the information being fed to it.

She glanced to where she could see Chuck's head sticking out from behind a chair. His curly hair looked strange all contained under the bandage. Some of his bangs were flopped down over his eyes. Sarah smiled at his peaceful face. Chuck wasn't exactly a stressed out guy, but he still looked ador-

 _Stop it_ , Sarah scolded herself. _You already had this conversation. With yourself._ She frowned. _God, I'm tired._ Her brain was lethargically following rabbit trails to stupid stuff like how adorable Chuck was when he slept, because, goddamn, he absolutely was a-

Sarah's head slowly dropped toward the table as she tried to stop thinking about the sleeping Chuck a few feet away from her, and she eventually peacefully drifted off to sleep.

 _ **LINE BREAK FTW**_

"Sarah?"

Sarah's eyes shot open, and she sat bolt upright, the back of her head colliding with something soft.

"Ah!" someone shouted. Sarah whipped her head around to see Chuck stagger back and hit the wall behind him.

"Chuck!" Sarah shot to her feet and reached him as he began to slide down the wall. She grabbed him under his arms and kept him on his feet until he got his own feet under him. He leaned heavily on the wall and rubbed his nose.

"Ow," he whined.

"What were you doing?" Sarah scolded, worried.

Chuck shrugged, still holding his nose. "You were asleep," he said defensively. "I wanted to wake you up, and then you went and bashed me in the face."

Sarah ignored that and tried to move Chuck's hands away from his face. "Damn it, you're bleeding," she muttered.

"Yeah, because you-"

"I know what happened!" Sarah interrupted, annoyed. "Just sit down and be quiet."

Chuck muttered something under his breath, but he sat where Sarah had been sleeping. Sarah jogged over to the first aid where it was still on the ground and grabbed a rag. Chuck's pillow lay crumpled on the ground a few feet away. She brought it back to Chuck, who had found the remote and began to raise the volume.

Sarah tilted his head back and began to wipe away the blood, but Chuck protested and snatched the rag from her. "I can do this myself," he told her.

Sarah raised an eyebrow, but stepped back. "Fine." She crossed her arms as a thought struck her. "Chuck, do you know what time it is?"

He shook his head, pinching his nose.

Sarah made her way to the desk and powered on the computer. She glanced at the corner and cursed.

"What?" Chuck asked, his voice muffled.

"It's been three hours," Sarah explained. "Damn it."

"Wait, what? What time is it?"

"Not important," Sarah said, striding past him and disappearing into the hallway.

"Oh, come one, Sarah," Chuck protested. He tried to follow her, but staggered and sat heavily. "Ooh," he moaned.

"Yeah, you shouldn't be standing," Sarah added as an afterthought.

"Thanks a lot." A pause. "Uh, what are you doing?"

Sarah poked her head out from behind a wall. "We need to get Casey back. What else would I be doing?"

"Wait. Casey?" Chuck called after her, struggling to speak loud enough through the rag covering his mouth and nose. "What's wrong with Casey?"

Sarah showed her face again. "He's still in the store. You didn't know?"

"How would I have known?"

Sarah shrugged. "Well, now you know."

Chuck felt an overwhelming urge to sneeze, but stifled it in his rag. "But the general told us to wait for reinforcements!"

"She told _you_ to wait for reinforcements," Sarah clarified. "She told _me_ to get Casey out of there, and I should have done it a long time ago."

"Even you have to sleep sometimes, Sarah," Chuck reminded her. "You don't have to feel guilty about it."

"But even you were up before I was, and you were just knocked unconscious." She showed her face again. "How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Been better," Chuck said offhandedly. "You can't go alone, Sarah. That's suicide."

"I'll be fine," Sarah insisted.

"Even you can't take on an entire team of bad guys with guns!" Chuck's blood pressure was rising. "At least let me come with you!"

Sarah reemerged, a frustrated look on her face. "Chuck, I don't mean to be rude," she began, "but how will taking you with me help? I mean, you can barely walk."

"That's not true!" Chuck said, indignantly trying to prove her wrong by getting to his feet.

Sarah strode over and firmly pushed him back down. "You'll just hurt yourself," she told him dismissively.

Chuck gritted his teeth. It stung that she had rejected him so out of hand, but he knew that she was right. He would just slow her down, and as much as he wanted to help, he would probably just give himself a concussion going up the stairs. Plus, he would have to run around with a gun in one hand and the rag held to his nose in the other. Hardly an ideal situation.

"Fine," he grumbled. "At least tell me what you're planning." He pulled the rag away from his nose and his stomach turned at the sight of the blood clotted on it. He tasted the salty flavor on his upper lip and hurriedly wiped it off, grimacing. Sarah, already having gotten the last rag from the box, pressed it into his hand. He thankfully pressed it back up to his face and left the dirty one on the table.

Sarah gave him a look. "We don't leave our bloody articles of clothing on the table, Chuck. I thought you knew that," she scolded, ignoring Chuck's earlier request.

"Oh, yeah. I guess it's just never applied to me before." _It would be because of a nosebleed, the least heroic injury of all time_ , he thought sourly. "And don't think I didn't notice that change of conversation." Chuck caught her eye. "Hey, at least tell me you have a plan before you go in guns blazing."

Sarah dropped her gaze and didn't respond.

Chuck's own eyes narrowed. "Sarah…?" he asked warily.

Sarah busied herself with her pistol, taking out the magazine and inspecting it. "Hmm?"

There was a tense silence, then Chuck slumped, again trying to hold in a sneeze. "You don't have a plan, do you?"

"I have a plan!" Sarah protested. "I do! It's just-"

"Just what? A half-baked outline of a general idea of what might work? That's not enough, Sarah!"

"Oh, like your plans are always _so_ much better!" Sarah shot back. "You'd _never_ go off on any stupid crusades to try to impress everyone and almost get yourself killed in the process!"

Chuck threw up his hands. "At least I was trying to do something!" His head was pounding painfully from the shouting, but he refused to back down.

"And I'm trying to do something now!" Sarah slammed her pistol magazine on the table. "So let me!"

"Not if you're going to get killed!" Chuck stood angrily, just so he could gain the extra few inches over her. It was slightly ruined by the rag and the fact that he struggled to remain upright, but he would take what he could get.

"That's not your decision to make!" Sarah made to shove him, but stopped herself. She resorted to cursing at him. "Chuck, I need to get Casey back, goddamnit!"

"And you will! But at least let me help. Or wait for the general, that would be even better!"

"And what if she's too late? What if Casey's already-" Her breath hitched, and she stopped.

Chuck put a hand on her shoulder, after making sure it wasn't bloody. "He won't be," he reassured. "You have to have faith in him. He knows what he's doing."

Sarah seemed calmed down, and Chuck relaxed. He stepped back and sat down again, comfortable in the knowledge that he had talked her down.

"He's still my partner," Sarah muttered.

Chuck rolled his eyes. "I know, but-"

Sarah turned on him. "No, Chuck," she said sternly. "I know you have good intentions, but Casey and I are partners. We don't leave each other behind for someone else to reach. We clean up each other's messes, we work together, and we trust each other with our lives. I understand that you don't get that yet, you're pretty new to all this, but you have to trust me when I say that I can't leave him there, because I know he would do the same for me."

Chuck recognized the resolute look in her steely blue eyes and sighed. "Sarah," he tried one more time, as if that one word could change her mind. "Is there anything I could say to stop you?"

Sarah shook her head. "I'm sorry, Chuck, but I'm going, and you aren't."

Chuck glanced away, trying to think of the right words to say. Sarah braced herself for another devastating appeal to her emotions, something Chuck specialized in, but it never came. She looked up to see Chuck frozen in front of her. His eyes were trained on something over her shoulder. His mouth was open, the rag falling away from his nose a small bit.

She frowned and turned. "What is it?" she asked, scanning the room for a threat. Her immediate thought was that someone had found their way into Castle. Then her eyes found the television.

Chuck mindlessly reached for the remote and turned up the volume so they could hear the news anchor talking over the scene shown on screen.

"...don't know how they got there, as there was no sign of them at the beginning of this situation. No clear reason has been found as to why these in particular were taken, or how, but the police are working to reach a compromise. So far, no progress has been reported, but more reinforcements are on the way, including experts in this field, to take care of the situation.

"After a quick background check, we have found that both are successful doctors and have been living together since they graduated at the top of their class. No details jump out as to why they were chosen, or, again, how they got there, or how long they will be held. They appear to be unharmed. All immediate family has been contacted, or has at least been tried, as not all have-

"Wait, we're getting something here. It turns out that one of these doctors is related to a worker at this very Buy More. Eleanor Bartowski, older sister of one of the very employees who has been missing since this story began. Can this missing employee possibly be the reason for all of this? More with Michael Highmore, who is currently on the scene. Michael?"

The screen changed to a view of a tall man in a casual suit. He held a microphone and stood several dozen feet in front of the barricade to the Buy More. He stood by a familiar face.

"Thanks, Jake," he said in an announcer's voice. "Standing with me, I have one of the lucky employees who somehow managed to escape the building before he was gunned down."

"Oh, well, it wasn't that dramati-"

Michael cut over him. "Now, Morgan Grimes, is it true that you were a close friend of the missing person?"

Morgan looked confused, his hands thrust in his khaki pockets. "Missing person?" After a few seconds, an idea hit him. "Oh, you mean Chuck. I'm sure he's fine. He's a pretty resourceful guy. I mean, he's one of the only guys who can beat me one on one with the freakin' energy sword when I'm armed to the teeth, even though I get to practice all the time, while he actually works-"

Michael interrupted him again. "Where do you think Charles is?"

Morgan chuckled. "He's probably hiding in the bathroom. I wouldn't worry about it. Also, don't call him Charles. Only his dad does that. It's weird."

Michael was struggling to keep the conversation on topic. "Do you know of any reason why someone would come after Charles, or this store?"

Morgan's grin was huge. "Dude, yeah! We're serious competition for every other electronic store in the state! It makes sense for them to feel threatened."

"So… you think this is an attack from a rival business?"

Morgan shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Who knows? All I know, is as soon as this is all over and Chuck's back, I'm buying him a pizza, 'cause he got me on tv. Hey, Mom!"

The feed abruptly cut back to Jake in the studio. He was clearly trying to restrain a smile. "As you can see," he said, his voice straining, "not many credible theories out yet as to why choose this store or this family, but hopefully we'll have more information after the break."

A commercial for a local water park came on.

Chuck shut it off. There was a silence, then he set the rag down on the table and sniffed. His nose and upper lip were stained red, but the flow had ebbed to nothing. "Are you still going to make me stay here?" he asked sullenly, his voice stuffy.

"Yes," Sarah responded bluntly.

"What? But they have Ellie and Awesome!"

"All the more reason for you to stay here!" Sarah faced him. "Listen, if you come, the chance of the mission failing skyrockets. Now that there are confirmed civilians in there, we have to be as careful as possible."

"I can be careful!" Chuck protested.

Sarah shook her head. "Sorry, not happening."

"Sarah, I stopped bleeding, I'm fine," he repeated.

"Good for you," she said irritably. "You're not going to change my mind."

"But I'm not bleeding, I'm okay! Just let me-" He stopped abruptly. Sarah frowned at him as he made a face- eyes half closed, mouth open, face raising toward the ceiling.

She realized what was happening just in time. She cursed and leaped out of the way as Chuck finally sneezed, sending blood and snot shooting into the air in front of him, air that had been occupied by Sarah only seconds before. The force of the sneeze sent Chuck back into the chair, dizzy. "Ow," he groaned.

His nose was bleeding furiously once more. Sarah sighed, then set a careful hand on his shoulder. "Sorry," she said, almost meaning it. "You can clean the floor while I'm gone, though."

Chuck scowled at her, but the effect was lost over his watering eyes and blushing cheeks. She smiled sweetly at him, then patted him on the head and returned to checking her gun.

 **Guys! It happened! I finally sat down and wrote something more than a thousand words! Rejoice! Seriously, I'm sorry it took so long. I hope it was worth the wait.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hey, guys. Sup. How ya doin'? Good? That's good. It must feel nice. Physics is kicking my butt, but whatever. I'm sorry about the delay, but I've consistently had an hour of homework every night in math alone, plus other stuff, and soccer, so I haven't had much time. But now that you know, I'm going to stop hiding behind that lame excuse that** _ **every**_ **writer uses and try harder. Sound good? Cool. Appreciate your patience.**

 **Hey, guess what? I own nothing!**

 **Sarah P.O.V**

Sarah holstered her pistol and pulled on her leather jacket. She didn't really need it. The temperature outside was downright warm. But she wore it anyway. She had had this jacket in particular for several years. It was one of very few that had survived for so long without getting shot, knifed, ripped, or otherwise ruined in Sarah's day-to-day life.

After checking over herself cursorily in the mirror, she opened the door and exited the bathroom. She began to pull her blonde hair up into a quick ponytail as she called, "Hey, Chuck! I'm about to go, okay?"

She stood still to finish the ponytail. She waited for a few seconds, but there was no answer from the living room. Sarah's eyes narrowed, and she cursed under her breath. In hindsight, she realized it was a monumentally stupid idea to leave Chuck alone with Ellie's situation still brewing in his mind. He was known to be extremely stupid on occasions like this, charging out into the thick of it to somehow save the day with no plan, no backup, and no means of defending himself.

Sarah sprinted to the main room, berating herself harshly. What had she been thinking? Of course Chuck wouldn't just sit there like she had asked. He loved his sister too much to just sit around and let Sarah do all the saving. He probably hadn't even stopped to think about the fact that he could barely stand straight. _Or the fact that he had been shot, the idiot!_ she thought worriedly.

She charged into the room where she had last left Chuck watching the news with a menacing look on his face. She quickly searched the room with her eyes. He was nowhere to be seen.

Sarah's heart plummeted, and she leaned against the door frame, almost dizzy. "Damn it," she muttered. She rubbed her forehead tiredly. She would have to speed up the entire operation. Now, not only was Casey in danger, but Ellie and Devon had gotten dragged into it, and Chuck was about to charge in headfirst. It was like, every time bad news like this reached him, he pressed his hands over his ears, kept his eyes shut, and trucked forward with absolutely no regard for his own safety.

As the agent the CIA handpicked to protect him, he was a nightmare to keep safe. She thought she had gotten good at her job, having spent long enough to get to know him and his reckless side, but apparently she was wrong. Now she would have to go save his sorry butt again.

Sarah tried to convince herself that that was the only reason she was worried.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly, calming her system. In a few seconds, she would open her eyes and get going, but she needed to gather herself first.

"Sarah?"

Great, now she was hearing his voice. God, she was getting way too attached to him. When you can't leave someone's presence for five minutes without hearing them talk to you in your head, something was wrong with you.

"Sarah?"

And he'd decided to be persistent and annoying. At least her projection of him was accurate. Maybe, if it was getting this bad, she should request a transfer. She couldn't afford to get dependant on anyone, least of all an assignment.

This thought shook her, and she took in a jagged breath.

"Sarah!"

Warm hands grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently. Without even thinking about it, Sarah's hands snapped up and forcefully knocked the hands off. There was a masculine cry and a thud. Sarah's eyes opened to see Chuck sitting on the floor, stunned.

Her jaw dropped. "Chuck?" Her voice was embarrassingly shaky.

Chuck rubbed his arms, scowling. "God, Sarah, you're in a bad mood today."

Sarah dropped to her knees next to him, but he waved her off. "No, no, I'm fine." He got to his feet, only grimacing once or twice, then he looked down at her. "You're on a roll," he said flatly, but Sarah could see the glint in his eye. She recognized it and was relieved to see that he wasn't truly annoyed with her.

But she would never tell him that. She crossed her arms. "Where did you go?" she asked, her chin jutted out.

Chuck had his hands in his pockets. "Uh, nature called," he said, gesturing toward the other bathroom with his head. "Sorry?"

Sarah sighed. "No, nevermind. "You're going to stay here, then?"

Chuck's eyes darkened, but he nodded. "Yeah, I'll stay," he said resignedly.

"For once," Sarah added under her breath. "Anyway, don't forget to check that soon, okay?" She pointed to where his shirt was a bit tighter, stretched by thick bandages. She faltered, unable to shake the mental image of someone shooting Chuck.

Chuck's eyebrows furrowed. "I will," he said. An awkward silence stretched between them. Chuck looked like he was trying to build up the courage to comfort her. His hand started up, then froze midway and hung there. Sarah stood still, not meeting his eyes, waiting for him to do something. Hoping he would do something.

Then he turned around and sat on the table. "You'd better hurry," he said quietly.

Sarah couldn't justify the disappointment she was feeling. She couldn't even really identify what she was disappointed about. She stared at Chuck's profile, trying to decide what was the proper thing to do in the suddenly-awkward-for-no-apparent-reason situation she was in.

After a pause, she nodded. "Okay." Her voice was just as quiet as his had been. She wiped the palm of her hands against her pants. "Okay," she repeated, her voice louder and more confident this time. "I'm going."

Chuck waved to her without even glancing in her direction. "Bye," he said. He sounded almost- Sarah couldn't tell. Dejected? Maybe, but there was no reason to be.

What was she talking about? Of course there was. His place of employment was taken over, his sister was being held hostage at gunpoint, his other partner was MIA. There was no reason why he _shouldn't_ be dejected.

But, for some reason, Sarah got the feeling that those weren't the only thing he was upset about. She couldn't pinpoint exactly what was happening, but it was weird, and she was ready to get away from it, if at least for an hour or two.

Without another word, she turned on her heel and began to head toward the corridor that would take her to the hidden entrance she had first come from.

She only looked back once.

 **Chuck P.O.V.**

"Damn," Chuck whispered to himself as the echo of the the closed door faded. His hand curled into a fist on his leg. His head was pounding, from more than just the large bump forming.

He let Sarah go alone. Those… _bastards_ had his sister, and he just let Sarah go off to save her by herself. It wasn't that Chuck didn't think Sarah was capable, but she was only one woman. One woman with years of CIA training and two firearms, granted, but she could only do so much.

Normally, Chuck would've been gone as soon as Sarah left the room, but, for some reason, he stayed. He wasn't really sure why he did it. Of course he was worried, and he was sure that, no matter what Sarah said, he could help somehow. Maybe he would only have ended up on the wrong end of a gun; at least he would be with Ellie. She was his older sister, and no matter how over protective she got, they were extremely close. He shared an apartment with her and her boyfriend. How much closer can two siblings get?

When Sarah left the room to go do some girl thing in the bathroom, Chuck had gotten up immediately, intent on leaving for the Buy More. But pain flared in his head and he could feel a drop of blood sliding down the side of his face, so he took a few moments to get to the other bathroom and clean up. But as he stumbled over, he had too much time to think, and he psyched himself out. What if he got shot again? What if he got Sarah shot, or Casey, or Ellie? There were so many people that could get hurt if he acted too rashly. Was he really ready handle the responsibility that would come with getting someone killed? Yes, that was an extreme possibility, but it was a possibility all the same. These were not rational people. They just stormed a Buy More in Burbank. Wasn't that proof enough?

Time was something he usually didn't have. His stupid split second decisions were generally just that- stupid and made in a split second. With enough time to mull things over, he was somehow able to convince himself that Sarah knew what was the best course of action.

He stayed put.

And immediately hated himself for it.

"What am I even doing?" he muttered bitterly, smoothing his hair roughly. He was no super spy. He could barely run across the store without losing his breath. He wasn't even that smart of a guy. Sure, he had attended Stanford, but had he ever graduated? No. No, he had not. He had messed up the mission, like most he was included in. He even somehow found ways to ruin missions he wasn't even aware of. He couldn't look at any slightly malevolent needle without passing out. He was absolutely useless with a gun, or any weapon for that matter. His hand-eye coordination was just embarrassing. And even though there was a frickin' _computer_ in his brain, he couldn't even use _that_ right. His job was fixing other people's computers, but he couldn't do anything about the one stuck in his head. The irony wasn't lost on him.

Despite all of that, his sister and Awesome were in the line of fire, and he couldn't stand doing absolutely nothing about it.

The logical side of his brain, the side that had convinced him to let Sarah take control of the situation in the first place, was desperately trying to tell him that he was being stupid. Even with her partner MIA, she had the entire CIA at her back. What could he add to her already difficult situation other than another thing to worry about? He should just sit back and wait for the cavalry to arrive. After all, this cavalry had really big guns and the American government on their side. Surely, letting the seasoned professionals would be the smart thing to do.

But was the smart thing to do the Chuck thing to do?

Hell no.

 **Seriously though, I told myself I wouldn't become that writer who updates once every three years, so I'll try to do better.**

 **You know, I just realized that I messed up the whole "Chuck vs. fill-in-the-blank" trend with the name of my story. Dang it.**

 **Thanks for reading anyway!**


	10. AU

Okay, so I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm having a hard time writing, and I'm sorry about that. I'm even more sorry to say that you're going to have to wait a bit longer for this to finally end, because I'm having some family... stuff going on, and it's kind of all-consuming. I'm trying to deal with it as best I can, but I won't be able to write for a bit. I appreciate your patience, and I'll try to finish this some time in the near future, but for now, I won't be able to do so.

Thank you for reading, reviewing, and (hopefully) understanding.


	11. Chapter 11

**Well, crap.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck, the man or the show.**

Sarah lay on the ground of the men's restroom.

Given more time, she could have probably found some better place to hide than the floor of the men's restroom, but the current situation had forced her to make a split-second decision. That decision manifested itself in laying on the floor of a bathroom that was frequented my such people as Jeff and Lester.

The thought sent shivers down her spine. But she tried her best to ignore it.

So, she found herself sprawled out on the floor, gripping the handle of her pistol tightly. The tile was cold, stealing any body heat she had left. The entire store was freezing, as if it was overcompensating for the extreme heat and humidity outside. Thankfully, Sarah was wearing a leather jacket. Unfortunately, it was a leather jacket, and it didn't give as much warmth as she would have preferred.

She was also extremely aware of the fact that she was on the ground in front of a urinal. When she first ran in, her first instinct was to hide, so she got low. Specifically, ground level low. In approximately five seconds, she realized that the ground she had chosen was a strange off-white color, as if it had been so vigorously scrubbed that the color of the tile was rubbed off as well.

Footsteps had been pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom for the past few minutes, but they were finally fading away. Sarah took the chance to get off the floor. She glanced to the side and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. Her clothes were rumpled and dirty. Her white shirt, the only one she had had on hand in Castle, still had a little bit of Chuck's blood on it from his emergency surgery. Her hair was still pulled back in a tight ponytail, although it wasn't nearly as well kept as it had been when she left Castle.

The thought reminded of the fact that Chuck hadn't gone off to get himself killed. He had really surprised her. She would have bet money on the certainty that Chuck would disobey direct orders to try to help someone and put himself in the line of fire without fail. She had tried not to really show it to him, but she had been _so_ certain that he would abandon her to go initiate some half-baked scheme that would get him killed. Sarah had already been berating herself for leaving him alone. But instead, he actually stayed put for once like he was told and now Sarah didn't have to worry about him getting shot. She could focus on the mission at hand without worrying about keeping him safe.

Even so, it felt like something was missing. Maybe it was just the lack of a partner in general, but Sarah had gotten used to someone following her lead, or at least talking incessantly in her ear. She had already realized that Chuck was insufferably endearing, two words Sarah had never had the occasion to use together until this assignment. She was glad Chuck was safe, of course, but she found herself wishing that, for once, he would disobey orders and join her.

She blinked hard and turned away from the mirror. That was crazy talk. Chuck _never_ listened when they told him to stay put. She should be grateful and move on. She couldn't afford to distract herself with these kinds of thoughts. So she quickly fixed her ponytail, because it was really bothering her, then slid up to the wooden door of the bathroom.

After waiting for a few moments and hearing nothing from the other side, she carefully opened the door and slipped out, closing the door softly behind her. She checked the hallway behind her and walked forward stealthily, both hands wrapped around the grip of her pistol, one finger hovering over the trigger. She reached the end of the hallway and glanced around the corner.

She saw no movement and stepped forward.

Honestly, she was kind of proud of Chuck. He was acting like a mature adult for once, something he seemed to straddle the line on. He was a generally responsible person, especially when compared to his friends and coworkers. There was the small detail that he lived in his sister's apartment, but that wasn't completely his fault, since he lived on a Buy More salary. He had his good days and his bad days, which could manifest themselves in a variety of ways. Sometimes he was as childish as Morgan, sometimes he was the one coming up with a brilliant plan to save the day.

More often than not, it was the former and not the latter, but it wasn't unheard of.

Sarah peeked around another corner, saw no movement, and moved forward.

She knew that Chuck had attended Stanford; it was in his file. But it also said he was kicked out before he could graduate. Sarah had never gathered the courage to ask him what happened. It was probably a painful memory. But she just couldn't imagine him doing anything worthy of expulsion, after almost four years of incident-free learning. It seemed very unlike him. But Sarah never met college Chuck; maybe that experience was enough to scare him straight.

Sarah checked around another corner, saw no movement, and rounded it quickly.

Ellie had never talked about Chuck's rebellious years, so Sarah had assumed that he never went through them, but she couldn't think that. What she should think was that…

...she was way off topic and would get shot if she didn't start paying attention.

She reached another corner and barely bothered to glance out ahead of her before rounding the corner. As soon as she took a step, she saw the shadow of someone coming around the corner up ahead of her and she froze for a split second before diving back behind the wall.

She pressed her back against the wall and gripped her pistol tightly against her chest, careful to keep the barrel aimed away from her face. She heard soft footfalls coming down the hallway. They were slow and quiet, but not so quiet that she couldn't hear them. They must have seen her and were trying to sneak up on her. Sarah couldn't let that happen.

She edged up to the corner and waited, making her breaths as shallow and quiet as possible. The footsteps got steadily nearer, until they were only a few feet away. Sarah counted to three in her head, took a breath, and lunged out from the wall, swinging her pistol as hard as she could at her own eye level.

Her gun slammed into the man with a loud thud. He was taller than her, so the pistol, instead of hitting him in the face where she had been aiming, hit his chest, around his collarbones. He let out a cry of shock and pain and hit the ground hard.

Sarah stood over him and reached out a hand to the wall to keep her balance. She blew her hair out of her face and stepped forward, over the man, not bothering to look at him.

"Ow."

Sarah froze. She turned slowly, her eyebrows creasing. "What-?"

She turned to see Chuck laying on the ground, clutching his chest tightly and moaning. "Good to see you too," he grunted.

Sarah dropped to her knees beside him. "Chuck!" she hissed. "What in the hell are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay put! And I thought you had agreed to!"

Chuck rubbed his chest in a circular motion. "Well, I had," he agreed. "But then I remembered that those _maniacs with guns have_ _Ellie_."

Sarah sighed. "I know, but we had decided that I would take care of it."

"Yeah, I also realized that there are a dozen _maniacs with guns that have Ellie_ in there and you trying to take them on without a plan, alone, is an absolutely horrible idea." He sat up painfully.

Sarah sat back on her legs. "I want you to go back. Now."

"And I want to help you save Ellie and Awesome," Chuck replied stubbornly.

"I'm sorry, remind me which one of us is the established spy who has successfully completed dozens of missions on her own?"

Chuck pretended to think about it. "Well, I'm guessing you, since you said 'on _her_ own'."

Sarah gave him a look. "Just go back, okay? I don't want you to get shot. Again. And besides, you'll only make this harder."

Chuck shook his head and started to get up. Sarah reflexively caught his arm when he wobbled halfway up. "We've already been over this, haven't we?" he asked. "No matter what you say, I'm staying with you."

"We have already been over this," Sarah agreed, annoyed, "so you should know what my response is. I'm not going to let you get yourself killed, not on my watch."

"You won't," Chuck said simply.

Sarah couldn't believe that, just a minute earlier, she had been praising him for being a mature adult. Apparently, she had momentarily forgotten how infuriating he was. She clenched her fist. "Charles Bartowski," she said, her voice rising. "If you do not get back into Castle this minute and-"

"I DID NOT CRY!"

Sarah was interrupted by a loud thud and raucous voices coming from down the hall. Chuck spun so fast he almost fell over again, but Sarah grabbed him by the elbow and yanked him over to the side. As the voices grew nearer, she pulled open the nearest door and pulled him inside, closing it again as quietly as possible.

It was pitch dark inside, and quiet except for their breathing. Chuck's was labored, sounding like he was still in pain from earlier. Sarah glanced over at him, guilt tugging at her conscience, but she couldn't see him in the dark. She stepped forward so that her nose was almost touching the door, which was crossed in slats flipped down so a minimal amount of light made it into the room.

The voices neared their hiding place. There were two of them. Both Chuck and Sarah recognized one of them.

"Look, man," Rizzo said in his whiny voice. "All that about me crying is complete bull. Plus, I said I was sorry. It's not like we need those shelves anyway. And no one's shopping, so no one else needs it, neither."

"That's not the point, Riz," a deeper voice said. "You made us all look stupid in front of someone who ended up getting away while you watched."

"Hey! I tried! She broke my nose!"

"She still got away, though, didn't she?"

"It wasn't all my fault! Henry and Bryan were there too!"

"Yeah. She put one of them in the hospital and the other one still isn't walking straight, so they weren't much help."

Sarah could feel Chuck staring at her incredulously in the dark as he connected their words with her. Her cheeks heated, and she shifted away from him slightly, far enough to feel the wall with her hand. She frowned and felt around her a bit.

Rizzo sighed and stopped. "It's not fair that you're all blaming me for this."

"You're the new guy. It's what happens. Plus, you also let the gangly one get away."

"That was Tony!" Rizzo cried indignantly.  
"Dude, you didn't even try."

There was a soft thud as Rizzo leaned on the wall. Sarah cursed mentally. She and Chuck were stuck in a closet together. _A closet._

"Well, maybe if you would give me a freaking gun," Rizzo muttered.

There was another thud as the second, heavier guy leaned against the wall as well. "Well, maybe if you would actually hit a target every now and then," he replied.

Rizzo sighed. "I hate you, you know that?"

"Yeah. I hate you too," the other man said easily.

"Good. Just so we understand each other."

"Yup."

There was a silence. Sarah waited for the two to move along, but they showed no signs of moving. She stood there in tense silence for what felt like hours until they finally shifted and got up off the wall. _Oh, thank God,_ Sarah thought. _They're leaving_.

They weren't leaving.

Or, well, the big guy wasn't. Rizzo said goodbye and walked on down the hallway, but the second man just repositioned himself several feet down the hallway and stood there, as if he were on guard duty. There was some rustling, and soon Sarah recognized the sound of paper.

The man was reading a book.

 _He was reading a book._

Sarah's eyes widened as the realization hit her, and she rubbed her forehead. "Oh, no," she muttered softly.  
Chuck had come to the same realization soon after Sarah had, and he was breathing heavily. He backed up until his back hit the wall (which was about a full step back), and slid to the ground. Sarah sat down next to him and crossed her legs, and they sat in uneasy silence.

Chuck took a deep breath. "So, now what?" he asked under his breath. "I'm assuming you have some brilliant plan to get us out of here?"

Sarah nodded. "Yeah," she whispered.

"Great. Let's hear it."

"Okay." She shifted so her back was against the wall and crossed her arms. "We wait until he leaves, then we get out and you go back to Castle while I take care of Ellie, Awesome, and Casey."

There was a pause. "I'm not doing this with you again, Sarah," Chuck insisted, careful to keep his voice low.

"Then don't argue. You're the one who got us here in the first place."

Chuck stifled a cry of outrage. "That's not fair. I just want to help my sister. And I'm going to," he added.

Sarah looked at him, although she knew he couldn't tell. "If you hadn't shown up and made me wait here for so long, we wouldn't be caught in this closet and, who knows, maybe Ellie and Awesome would be safe by now."

"Yeah, or maybe you would be shot dead and the General would be dealing with a hostage situation without her best agents," Chuck countered.

"You don't know that."

"Neither do you."

Sarah calmed herself before their argument turned into a shouting match. "This is getting stupid. Just agree that you'll go back to Castle and we can-"

"You know I'm not going to do that, right?"

"Yeah, I do," Sarah continued, beaten. "There's nothing I could say that would make you change your mind?"

"Nothing short of knocking me out and dragging me back yourself."

There was a silence.

"Don't even pretend like you're considering that."

"Fine, fine." Sarah stared at the door, biting her lip. It was a nervous habit that usually she didn't indulge, but there was no one to see (or able to see). Even if he did see it, Chuck was probably one of the only people she knew who wouldn't mention it.

"So, I guess we just sit here and wait?" Chuck whispered.

"I guess so. Now shut up so Bookworm over there doesn't hear us and shoot us anyway," Sarah ordered. Chuck shut up as she asked, but the silence became heavy and almost as loud as if they had been talking. The AC that kept the building frigid apparently didn't include the closet, and soon the small space was uncomfortably warm. But Sarah never moved away from Chuck, and he never shifted away from where their shoulders touched.

The silence was only broken by their soft breaths and the rasps of paper as the man outside the door flipped the pages.

 **I apologize for the wait. I'm not quite sure exactly how long this hiatus has reached, but I'm too lazy/embarrassed to find out, so just know that I'll try to get this finished a bit quicker than all that. My family issues are mostly cleared up by now, so it's mostly just a matter of getting back into the swing of things now. Hopefully that won't take long.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	12. Chapter 11 (the real one)

**Ah, yes, the lovely phenomenon more commonly known as writer's block…**

 **If only I owned the things I'm having so much trouble writing about.**

 **(I don't, btw.)**

Chuck woke slowly. His brain moved sluggishly as his brown eyes fluttered open. His chest ached dully. A sharper pain shot through his side when he breathed too deeply. Even his head was throbbing.

None of it was extremely painful or bad enough to warrant much worry. But put all together, he felt like one huge, six-foot-three bruise.

He was becoming aware of a supremely uncomfortable crick in his neck. He tried to move his leg and found that it had fallen asleep. The air around him was warm; he was covered in a thin film of sweat. He squinted in the absolute darkness, and as his eyes adjusted, he realized he wasn't in complete darkness after all.

Small horizontal lines of light barred over his face and chest, reaching above his head a few feet. They didn't do much to illuminate the space he was in, but it was enough to get a good idea of his surroundings. The door, or what Chuck could only assume was a door, seemed like a closet door or something. Its slats were uneven and ran up its top half.

Chuck blinked and his brain finally woke up fully. He was in a closet in the back of the Buy More, trying to get to his sister. This thought jarred him into action, and he tried to move to get up.

That was when he realized that there was a weight on his leg that had fallen asleep. It was still experiencing pins and needles, which was why he hadn't remembered until that moment that Sarah was in the closet with him.

They were alone in a dark closet. And she was literally sleeping with her head in his lap.

This made him pause to rethink his grand crusade. On one hand, they were kind of in a big hurry. Who knew how long they had been in there? Apparently, they had eventually fallen asleep, and Chuck could sleep through anything, for as long as he needed. It was a talent that had come in handy when he shared a dorm room in college, but not so much when he was on a time crunch trying to save Ellie's life. They needed to get going, or he should at least move his hand out from under Sarah's head so he could check his watch.

But on the other hand, _Sarah was asleep in his lap_.

The rational side of his brain was screaming at him to get over himself and move her, but every other part of him was drowning that out with the overwhelming sensation of her hair splayed over his arm and its heady scent. Some light fell on her face and Chuck's gaze stuck on it. His eyes were suddenly on her mouth, and the combination of sensations and thoughts and confusing emotions kept him in place for he didn't know how long.

Until Sarah shifted and moved her head.

Chuck turned his head so quickly he almost gave himself whiplash. Praying that she hadn't seen his face and assumed he had been creepily watching her as she slept (which he totally had been), he laid his head back on the wall and squeezed his eyes shut.

There was a silence, interrupted only by Sarah's light breaths and Chuck's panicked ones. It stretched on for an eternity. Chuck's hands were sweating profusely, and he resisted the urge to wipe them on his khakis. Sarah wasn't moving, and, for a minute, Chuck was almost able to convince himself that he had imagined her movement. She wasn't awake, it was just a trick of the light.

He cracked his eyes open, but waited another few seconds before daring to look at her again. He slowly turned his head and squinted at her, ready to go limp again at the slightest provocation.

Her eyes were closed.

He let out a sigh of relief. She hadn't woken up. But now he had another problem. He actually needed her to wake up. They needed to get up and go do something before Ellie got hurt. And Awesome, of course. And anyone else they might have. _Look at the big picture,_ he told himself. _You have things you have to do, people you need to see._

He glanced down.

 _Yeah, you do, but you're already looking at her._

Chuck immediately grimaced at himself. _Oh, God, what does that even mean? That is by far the cheesiest thing you have ever said. Or thought. Ever. Stop it. Get up._

Okay. He was going to do it. He was going to get up, and wake up Sarah, and they were going to get out of this cursed closet, and nothing was going to be awkward because no news of this was going to get out of this very, very small room. He would say nothing to Sarah and she would know nothing about it and Casey would never, _ever_ learn what had transpired.

After a few seconds to ready himself and another few to reflect on how ridiculous his situation was, Chuck looked down again. Her head was on his upper thigh, facing away from him toward the wall. Her hands were crossed under her chest, the knuckles pressing against him. Her legs were tucked up and crossed at the ankles. The sight made Chuck freeze for one last time before he finally made up his mind. He was going to move. He was. It was going to happen. Right now. Riiiight now. Aaaaany second…

But she looked so comfortable.

There was a loud slam from somewhere outside the relative safety of their closet. The noise echoed down the hallway, loud as a gunshot.

Sarah sat bolt upright. Chuck's head snapped backward to avoid hers and it cracked against the wall behind him with a painful thud.

He muffled his groan as Sarah reflexively tried to jump to her feet, but she quickly realized she was in a confined space and stopped moving. There was a silence, punctuated by Sarah's heavy breathing. Chuck's pulse was racing, adrenaline still flooding his system. His head ached dully.

He watched Sarah closely as her blue eyes flicked around the room. There were crease marks on her cheek from his khakis, and he had to squash down a smile. She met Chuck's gaze and frowned. "Are you okay?" she asked loudly.

Chuck lunged forward and put a hand over her mouth. He tried to tell her to be quieter, but Sarah's instincts had his arm in a vise grip and bent awkwardly behind his back before anything came out of his mouth.

She held him there for a second before releasing him. "Sorry," she said. "Hard to ignore years of self defense."  
Chuck rolled his shoulder with a grimace. "Nevermind that. We need to get out of here."

Sarah looked around again. After a second, she asked in a lowered voice, "Are we still in the closet?"

Chuck nodded.

"Did we fall asleep in the closet?"

He pressed his lips together without an answer.

"How, exactly, did we fall asleep in the closet when you take up more than half of it?"

"Uh, we were tired?"

"No," Sarah whispered, exasperated. "How did we physically end up falling asleep? There's not enough room in here for a single adult of normal size to lay down, let alone…"

Her words trailed off when she glanced down. Her gaze landed on Chuck's pants. She slowly reached up and felt her cheek, where the crease marks were still fading.  
There was a moment of awkward silence.

"Well, I guess that answers that, doesn't it?" Sarah said with a small laugh.

"Yeah, I guess so," Chuck agreed with an equally small chuckle. He avoided her gaze studiously. He was seriously considering barging out of the closet and giving himself up while Sarah racked her brain for something to say that wouldn't be totally awkward, but whoever had slammed through the door outside and woken Sarah up was now storming down the hallway.

Sarah involuntarily leaned closer to Chuck as the footsteps grew nearer, and Chuck had to once again ignore the heady scent of her hair. The steps passed and grew distant.

Sarah breathed deeply. "We should go."

Chuck nodded. "Agreed." He tried to stand at the same time Sarah did, but there wasn't enough room, and she eventually just put a hand on his head and pushed herself up on him. He sat heavily and waited as she looked through the slats of the door.

"Okay, let's go," she said. She pushed open the door and Chuck scrambled to his feet behind her. He followed her into the hallway and had to let his eyes adjust to the harsh light for a few seconds. She turned to the right and Chuck almost began to follow her before he remembered the layout of the store.

"Uh, Sarah," he whisper-shouted. "That's the wrong way. The main room is back here." He pointed with his thumb behind him, and Sarah turned, her hands on her hips.

"I know, but we're going this way," she insisted.

"Why?"

"Because I am not going to let you get yourself killed. Besides, who knows how long we were out?"

Chuck looked at his watch. "About thirty minutes, and I thought we talked about this! Twice!"

Sarah visibly restrained herself from strangling him. "I am not going to be responsible for your death, Chuck," she said through clenched teeth.

"Cool. Nice to know. I'm going this way." And Chuck spun on his heel and began to walk away.

He got maybe four steps before Sarah grabbed his shoulder and stopped him. "I will do whatever is necessary to get you out of here, Chuck," she said, her voice low.

Chuck looked at her. "Oh, yeah? You going to knock me out and carry me?"

Sarah jutted out her chin. "If I have to."

Chuck barked out a laugh. "Okay, you have fun with that. I'm going to go save my sister now." He tried to walk away again.

Sarah puffed out a breath behind him. "You know what, Chuck, I have spent years of my life trying to protect you, even when you didn't want it, but I have had enough of your stubbornness," she announced, her voice sharp and biting.

Chuck said nothing and kept walking, against his own better judgement. He was expecting her to leave him behind, because that's what typically happens when a girl says " _I've had enough"_ to a guy: the messy breakup, or, in this case, the abandonment to an almost certain suicide mission. Which was fine by him. If she wasn't going to help him save his sister, she could go rot in hell for all he cared.

But as soon as he thought that, he knew he didn't mean it. Sarah didn't deserve anything like that. Heck, she didn't deserve him. Not that they were, you know, together or anything. He just meant that, out of all the assignments she could have gotten, he was not what she deserved. As an agent. And her assignment. Not-

Something simultaneously collided with his back and jabbed at the back of his knee. His leg buckled, and the extra weight brought him to the ground hard. He hit on his left knee first and face planted, pain exploding in his kneecap. He bit his lip to contain the cry of pain that bubbled up in him and rolled to try to dislodge whoever was on top of him. He at first assumed it was maybe Rizzo or some accomplice of his, but he immediately recognized the scent that hovered over him.

 _For the love of God…_

Sarah leaned over, her lips next to his ear. "Chuck," she hissed. "I am not going to leave you to face a bunch of madmen with guns and years of experience, whether you're with me or not."

Chuck grinded his teeth. "I guess we'll just sit here then, won't we? Because I am not going anywhere."

"Well, neither am I," Sarah said, sitting up and crossing her arms in a show of defiance and pure stubbornness. She straddled his wide back comfortably.

"Not even if I ask really politely?" Chuck asked sarcastically.

"Not even then."

"Not even if someone starts walking down the hallway toward us carrying a gun?"

"Not-" Sarah began, then stopped suddenly.

"That would kinda defeat the purpose of keeping me down, don't you think?" Chuck asked, his voice dripping with saccharine sweetness. "Hm, what a conundrum. I suppose it would be best to just let me up so we could get away from the bad guy-"

"But then you'd just go running right into the thick of them!" Sarah interrupted. "Exactly what you should not be doing! The general is sending reinforcements, remember?"

"My sister might get shot, Sarah." All emotion was gone from Chuck's voice, except for deadly serious purpose. He was stating facts now, with the voice of someone who had said them ten too many times.

There was a pause.

"I'm not going to let that happen," he continued when Sarah was quiet. "It would be my fault for even getting mixed up with all this in the first place, and for letting Ellie and Awesome get pulled in. I can't let anything happen to them."

Sarah still said nothing. Chuck could think of nothing else to say that might convince her. It was up to her judgement now.  
She sat in silence for a while before quietly standing. She let Chuck get up, her gaze on the floor. "Fine," she said, almost in a whisper. "Go get yourself killed. Have fun."

Chuck brushed off his shirt awkwardly. She was just standing there, looking at the floor, her shoulders a little slumped. He tried to think of something to say, but his mind drew a blank, so he started to walk away.

And heard her following him immediately.

He stopped. "What happened to letting me go get myself killed?" he called over his shoulder.

"I didn't say I would let you do it alone," she replied softly.

Chuck froze, and crippling guilt immediately flooded him. His fists clenched. She was trying to guilt-trip him, but it wasn't going to work. He was going to go save his sister and his brother-in-law, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She sniffed behind him.

 _Crap, is she crying?_ She couldn't be crying. Chuck mentally shook himself. _She's playing you. Pull yourself together, you pathetic piece of-_ He tried to stop the emotion the small sound created in him, but what could he say? He was a sensitive guy.

He sighed loudly and emphatically. He couldn't just leave her crying in the hallway. Or just following him and sniffling. Not only would that be extremely callous of him, it would be the exact opposite of sneaky, which was important in these situations. They had to at least get out of the hallway before someone walked through again.

Chuck closed his eyes for a second before turning to face her. "Look, I'm sorry, I-" He opened his eyes and stumbled to a stop. Sarah's eyes were screwed shut, and her hand was over her mouth. Chuck frowned. "Uh, Sarah, are you okay?" he asked carefully.

She said nothing, but just stood there without moving. Chuck was genuinely concerned. "Sarah?" He stepped forward and raised a hand to put on her shoulder. "What's going on?" Of course, he knew what was going on, but he was going to pretend like he didn't so he didn't accidentally confess to something she was unaware of, like almost every stupid main character of a tv show did at least twice. He was not going to be that stupid main character of a tv show, so he kept his mouth shut.

She drew in a deep breath, like she was going to say something, but still didn't move.

Before Chuck could ask again, she held up a finger. Approximately two seconds later, it clicked in Chuck's head. His eyes widened and he quickly stepped back before Sarah let out an enormous sneeze that tore down the long hallway.

So she hadn't been crying.

It was so loud that Chuck flinched. "Sarah!" he hissed.

"Sorry!" she whispered. "I couldn't help it!"

Immediately they heard voices from down the hall. Sarah cursed. Chuck grabbed her arm and pulled behind him as he raced to the end of the hallway. He was about to barge through the door at the end of it when they heard someone else on the other side of it. Chuck skidded to a stop, and Sarah yanked him to the side, where the janitor's closet was. She opened the door and Chuck followed her inside. The confined space was filled with janitorial clutter, buckets and mops and such. The entire place reeked of cleaning fluid. It made Chuck's nose itch.

"Another closet? Really?" he asked.

Sarah punched him in the arm.

The door nearest them opened, and someone walked in. "Hey, what was that?" he called.

Someone called back, "I dunno. Someone sneeze?"

"I don't know, I've been back with the prisoners."

"Wait, we have prisoners?"

Chuck visibly tensed up.

"Yeah," the first guy responded. "It's this couple. They're nauseating. One of them is, like, an eternal optimist or whatever."

"Is the girl cute?"

"Yeah, but Mr. Optimist won't let me near her. I think they're, like, married or something."

Chuck lunged toward the door with unfamiliar anger in his eyes, but Sarah grabbed his hand and met his eyes. An unspoken argument passed between them, and Chuck slumped. "Fine," he muttered, and the man in the hallway was safe for the time being.

"Bad luck, man," the second man said. "I was just looking through the kitchen, and there's all this leftover food in there."

"That's generally what you put in kitchens," Sarah said under her breath.

"I found this sandwich-"

Chuck straightened like a bolt of lightning struck him.

"-and it tastes amazing."

"You're just eating someone's sandwich? Isn't their life sad enough, working at a Buy More, without us eating their sandwich?"

"They can make another one. It's not a big deal."

Chuck looked positively murderous.

"Okay, well, I'm going back, if nothing's wrong here."

They said goodbye, and the hall was quiet. Chuck was breathing deeply and heavily, his nostrils flaring. Sarah let go of his hand. "Chuck?" she asked.

He was staring at the door. "He's eating my sandwich," he said slowly.

"What?"

He looked at her. "I packed a sandwich for lunch, and I was going to eat it after all of this was over, because you kind of took over my lunch period. That man is eating my sandwich."

"Okay?"

"You don't understand," Chuck said, a hint of desperation in his voice. "Morgan and I have spent many painstaking hours creating the perfect sandwich, putting it through many tests such as what would we want most on a desert island and such. Morgan said that he had created the perfect sandwich, and I was going to try it today."

He looked Sarah dead in the eyes. "He. Is. Eating. My. Sandwich."

Sarah looked back at him calmly. "I'm not going to be able to get you to run away from this, am I?" she asked tiredly. She already knew the answer.

"Never," Chuck answered.

Sarah sighed. "Well, let's go rescue your sandwich."

 **Hey, guys. How's it going? I hope you're having a lovely life. Thank you for spending valuable minutes reading my ramblings (it means the world to me), and I'll see you next time.**


	13. Chapter 12

Chuck breathed in deeply, trying to calm his erratic heartbeat. His pulse was racing. He wiped his sweating palms on his khakis. Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward, peeking out from behind the off-white wall he was crouched against. After glancing around the store for a few seconds, he jerked his head back. No sight of Sarah yet.

This didn't mean anything, however, no matter how prone to panic Chuck felt. Sarah had told him to give her time, and he was going to do that. He was going to prove to her that he _was_ useful.

His leg ached, threatening to fall asleep, and Chuck grimaced. After glancing out one more time, he shifted position and sat down, his legs crossed Indian style. He resisted the urge to stretch his leg out in front of him. He had never before had to spend such a long period of time on the store's tile floor, and the hard material made it impossible to get comfortable.

Chuck rubbed his thigh, trying to get the blood flowing again. A quick look at the clock told him that it was almost five in the evening. His first thought was, _It's almost time to go home._ His second thought was, _You can't go home, you idiot._ _Not now, maybe not ever._

 _Well, that was depressing._ He didn't want to think about that, so he twisted around and looked around the wall. His eyes scanned the store, and on the second sweep, he noticed Sarah glaring at him from the showroom. She was almost completely hidden in shadow, except for her face. Her blue eyes flashed at him in a way that would have terrified him if he hadn't known who they belonged to. _Finally!_ she mouthed. _Come on!_

Chuck nodded hastily. His palms were sweating again. He got back into his original crouch, leaning heavily against the wall, and quickly wiped off his hands again before looking back out into the store. He looked both ways, like any good driver would, and saw nobody coming in either direction. A second to gather his nerves and for Sarah to roll her eyes at him, and he took off. Slowly. Very slowly. He crouched across the aisle, his hands almost brushing the floor.

When he reached the first wall of shelves, he paused and peeked around it. No one was coming, and when he looked back at Sarah, she was trying to tell him as much. She gestured him over impatiently, and he made a face at her.

She raised her eyebrows at him, in a _Did you really just do that?_ way that made Chuck feel like his caution was the epitome of stupid. He pressed his lips together and checked again, but he could still see Sarah motioning to him from the corner of his eyes.

He sighed. _Fine. If I get killed, it's your fault_ , he thought mutinously, then he took off again, this time moving slightly faster. Sarah watched him as he crossed the distance between them, glancing around to make sure he wasn't about to run into someone with a gun. When the first three aisles were passed with no such encounters, Chuck grew more confident and sped up.

Sarah was backing into the shadow of the room as he approached, making room for him to get past her through the doorway, when her eyes caught on something. Her eyes widened, and her entire face tensed. Her eyes met Chuck's and she began to mouth something in panic.

Chuck had no idea what she was saying, but the look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know. He skidded to a halt in the middle of an aisle and scrambled backwards. Heavy footsteps were approaching, getting steadily louder. Chuck pulled himself behind the shelves so violently his hand swept into an off-brand ipad and sent it crashing to the floor.

The footsteps stopped suddenly and Chuck cursed mentally. He knew Sarah was doing the same without turning to look at her. He hesitated for a split second over whether he should replace the ipad on the shelf or not, but heard more noise, panicked, and ran to the next aisle as quickly as he could without making a noise or straightening his back and letting his head protrude too high.

He pushed his back against a shelf of coffee pots and forced himself to take long, quiet breaths instead of hyperventilating. The footsteps were now accompanied by low muttering. The man was talking to himself, Chuck soon realized. His voice was so deep and low that Chuck was unable to make out any specific words.

He could hear the cracks in the man's knees as he crouched. He muttered a curse, and Chuck slowly peered around the shelf. A huge man was in the middle of the aisle, taking up most of the space in it. Standing up, he was probably something like seven feet tall. He picked up the ipad and studied it. Chuck assumed he was searching for cracks in the surface or other damage.

Chuck decided to call him Grouch. He couldn't explain why, but it just seemed to fit. Grouch had thick eyebrows over dark brown eyes that made him look permanently disgruntled, as if he had ordered some fries from a drive thru and only realized that he had received no ketchup to eat it with a few miles later.

After he was satisfied with the ipad, he stood and placed it back on the shelf. At full height, he towered over Chuck, who was on his hands and knees by this point. He tried to move back hastily, just to be safe, and his heel caught the metal bottom shelf. A small box threatened to tip over the edge. Chuck glanced back and, when he saw this, lunged to catch it before it fell.

He just managed to steady it, but his forehead slammed into the side of the shelf a few feet off the ground. A large coffeepot made of glass with a metal handle was knocked off and shattered on the tile.

All background sound in the store stopped as everyone turned to find the source of the noise. Chuck bit his tongue hard, both to keep from crying out in pain and to reprimand himself for being an idiot, like usual. Grouch, behind him, made a noise, a confused grunt that would seem more at home coming from a Neanderthal.

Chuck sprinted forward, trying to keep as low to the ground as possible. He made it around the corner of the last shelf before the wall and slid to his knees, only checking that the aisle was empty after he entered it.

Grouch was silent, then some glass clinked, like he was moving it around with his foot. "Hey!" he shouted loudly, and the sudden noise almost made Chuck cry out in surprise.

"What was that?" someone called back.

"Something fell off the shelf," Grouch explained. "Someone needs to come clean it up."

"Why don't you do it?" someone else shouted.

"'Cause I don't want to, you moron!"

"But you're closer to it!"

"And you're closer to the ground!" Grouch roared. "Just find a broom and get over here! Aisle thirteen!"

There was silence from the other side of the store, then the sound of faint arguing from several dozen feet away and someone sighing loudly. "Fine! I'll do it! Just like always!" they shouted bitterly.

Grouch rumbled something under his breath again, then began to walk away. As his steps receded, Chuck suddenly remembered how to breathe. He sat for a moment, his heart pounding, before leaning out again to look at Sarah. He was almost back where he had started. The door they had started from was only a few feet behind him. He found Sarah in the shadows of the showroom. She was rubbing her forehead, her eyes closed, and shaking her head.

When she looked up and saw him, she splayed her hands as if to say, _What the hell was that?_

Chuck shrugged.

Sarah very visibly and deliberately rolled her eyes again. Chuck frowned at her, and got in his starting crouch again, ready to sneak back across the store. The showroom was over a dozen feet away. Sarah had made it look so easy when she crossed over. She did it in one try in under half a minute, while Chuck had been stuck out in the open for what felt like the most nerve wracking hours of his life. Of course, most things Sarah made look effortless ended up eating Chuck for breakfast. He should be used to it.

Chuck started forward again, skirting around the broken glass carefully. Sarah was watching him intently, all traces of annoyance wiped off her face as he made his way toward her. He stopped between each aisle to be careful, but he was too nervous to really check. He just wanted to reach Sarah.

"Simon! Where the hell is the broom?"

Chuck immediately fell to his knees and hid. The voice had come from a few aisles away.

"I told you!" Someone who must have been Simon responded from across the store in an equally annoyed tone. "There's, like, a closet over there, somewhere."

"Where?"

"Why should I know? Do I work here? No! Thank God," he added in a slightly quieter voice, but still just as frustrated.

"Thanks a lot, Simon!" the voice said sarcastically. "I can always count on you."

"Will you two please just shut up?" someone shouted from the front. "Jake, every store has a broom closet. It's not that difficult!"

"Shut up, Preacher!" Jake, the one looking for the closet, responded maturely.

Preacher responded with a colorful combination of curse words Chuck had never heard before, and Jake didn't volley anything back at him. Instead, he just let out a huge, angry sigh and began walking again. " _Every store has a broom closet, Jake,_ " he mimicked angrily. "No, duh!"

He was walking in the area between the showroom and Chuck's aisle. Chuck tried to wait patiently for him to leave, but Jake stopped suddenly. "Oh, would you look that. The broom closet," he said to himself, and began walking again. Chuck waited, mildly frustrated, until he remembered that the broom closet was in line with the aisle he was hiding in.

If Jake reached the closet and turned around, he would see Chuck. And probably shoot him.

Chuck began to move backward slowly, keeping track of Jake as he moved along the outside aisle. As soon as he reached the closet, Chuck could move out and get to the showroom. Only a few more seconds…

"Jake!" a bright voice called, and Chuck froze. Sarah discreetly disappeared from view. A woman jogged out behind Jake and stopped beside the showroom expectantly. Jake kept walking. Soon he would be able to look into Chuck's aisle, and the woman would be in the way of reaching Sarah.

Chuck had to move backwards again. "Oh, come on!" he muttered, but he wasted no time in moving back to the previous aisle.

"Jake!" the woman called, annoyed.

"What?" he asked without bothering to turn around.

"I need your help with something!"

This time, Jake turned. "No, you don't. You're just in denial and too stubborn to get the truth in your thick head."

Chuck heard a sharp intake of breath from the woman. "Jake, I would never-"

"Yes, you would, Maddie," Jake interrupted. "Now, please, go away."

"But-"

"Go. Away."

Maddie huffed. Chuck could just imagine her standing with her arms crossed, one hip jutted out. "Fine. I'll just go ask Preacher."

"Yeah, you have fun with that. He just let some scrawny guy escape into a freezer and lock himself in, but go ahead. I'm sure Preacher will be more than accommodating."

 _Some scrawny guy?_ Chuck thought indignantly.

"You're so frustrating!" Maddie stomped her foot.

"Then go away." Jake's voice betrayed little emotion.

Maddie said nothing else, but Chuck could hear her stomping away. He glanced around the corner of the shelves and saw her walking away, her blond ponytail swishing behind her. Chuck couldn't help but be grateful that his relationship with Sarah wasn't like that. Sure, they were always arguing and almost constantly annoyed with each other, but you could hear Jake's true dislike for Maddie in the way he talked. And Maddie herself seemed like she had never matured past seventh grade.

He heard Jake open the closet. "Found the broom, if anyone was wondering," he announced to the store. There was no response, and Jake slammed the door closed.

Chuck got tense and slowly inched to the thinner, far side of the shelves. As Jake walked from the broom closet, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth set in a scowl, Chuck slipped forward through the aisle and waited a beat to hear him sound the alarm.

But Jake said nothing and started to sweep up the glass.

Chuck wasted no time and made a beeline for the showroom. Sarah was waiting for him in the shadowed doorway, her eyes wide as she watched worriedly. As he finally reached her, she grabbed his hand and pulled him in, almost overbalancing him and sending him toppling into the table. As it was, he barely managed to change course and stop himself on the couch. Sarah quickly and quietly closed the door behind him, and there was darkness.

After a few seconds of silence, Chuck's eyes adjusted and he noticed the light permeating through the curtains blocking off the windows, just enough to barely see the outlines of the room. He was breathing heavily, his pulse still racing from his close encounters. He readjusted on the couch and forced himself to slow his breaths.

There was some rustling, and he felt Sarah climb onto the couch beside him, careful not to run into him. "You okay?" she asked quietly.

"What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine." He paused. "You just make it look so easy."

"Years of practice," Sarah pointed out.

"I know," Chuck said, "but you would think I'd have gotten better at it by this point. Right?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're just bad at this kind of stuff."

"Oh, yeah, that's so much better."

"Maybe, next time," Sarah said slowly, "don't break everything within a mile radius?"

Chuck made a face at her reflexively before realizing that she couldn't see it. "I just made a face at you."

"Good to know."

There was another silence that stretched out for forever, or, so it seemed to Chuck. He was on the verge of saying something stupid just to break it when Sarah lunged forward. Chuck jerked his arms up to protect himself, but Sarah had him pinned.

He slowly realized she was hugging him.

"Please don't ever do that again," she said in his ear. "I almost had a heart attack."

Chuck's pulse was in overdrive. Heat rushed to his cheeks, and he had never been so glad to be in the dark. "Me too," he managed to get out. When Sarah didn't let him go, he awkwardly lifted his hands to wrap around her.

She stayed there for another second or two before moving back just as suddenly as she had started it. "Anyway," she said, and Chuck saw her toss her hair out of her face. "Now that that's over-" she started.

"Hey!" someone shouted inhumanly loudly from outside. Chuck flinched violently, recognizing the voice as Jake's.

"What?" someone else called back, irritated.

"Where the hell is the dustpan?"

 **Hey, look! A new chapter! One of these hasn't been spotted in years!**

 **But, yeah, sorry, about that. I hope you enjoy it anyway. I am extremely thankful your patience.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	14. Chapter 13

**Someone called the last chapter "farcical", and that absolutely made my day. Along with all the other reviews, of course. Thank you all so much!**

Sarah sighed. "Could you have chosen a worse time to lose the remote?" she asked in a loud whisper.

Chuck said nothing in reply, but Sarah could imagine the face he was making. His eyebrows were furrowed and his mouth was set in a scowl, but his brown eyes showed that he wasn't actually angry at her. There was a twinkle in them that hinted at his good humor and would let Sarah know when she went too far. Which was rare, both because Chuck was a good sport and she wasn't the kind of person to push her humor past the line.

He was currently rooting around under the table, his back to Sarah, his foot a few inches from hers. He had already checked under the couch, by sticking his arm in the gap as far as he could and moving down its length. Although he couldn't reach under the entire thing, he got a good sense of what was hiding there. It wasn't the remote. Or sanitary.

"Ugh," he groaned. "I don't think it's here either." He tried to lift his head and it smacked into the bottom of the table with a thud. Sarah smirked, knowing he wouldn't see it.

"Well, where else could it be?" she asked.

Chuck rose to his knees and rubbed the back of his head, smoothing down his curls. "I don't know. We've had teenage boys come in and hide it in places all over the store. I once found it in the employee fridge, although how they got in and out of there unseen is a mystery to me."

Sarah leaned back into the couch and crossed her arms. "So, basically," she summed up, "it could be anywhere in the store."

Chuck began moving again. " _Could_ be," he said. "It's probably in here somewhere."

"Probably," Sarah repeated flatly.

"I know, I know," Chuck said before she could continue. "Not good enough. But I don't have a magical remote finder in my pocket. I lost that a few years ago."

"Such a shame," Sarah said, her face completely serious. "Mine's back home."

"And you didn't think to bring it to work?" Chuck shook his head chidingly. "Sarah. I thought you were always prepared, you know, being a spy and stuff."

She shrugged noncommittally. "Technically, you're a spy too."

"Yeah, but we all know that's just a title," Chuck said as he crawled over to the tv and felt around on the floor. "I'm about as useful as a wet noodle."

"I wouldn't say that," Sarah hedged. "Maybe a wet pool noodle."

She was barely able to make out his shape straighten and turn to her in the semi-darkness. His eyebrow was probably raised skeptically, like it did when he clearly didn't believe her or appreciate her sarcasm. "Thank you, so much."

"You're welcome."

As he bent back over to search the ground by the curtains, there was a loud noise from outside, followed by extremely colorful language. Sarah turned on the couch to look at the curtains that separated her from the commotion outside. They weren't blackout curtains, so light came through them, but Sarah couldn't see anything through them, and there was no way anyone could look through them from the other side. She didn't recognize the voices on the other side, but there was no way she should be able to.

"Eureka!" Chuck shouted behind her.

Sarah spun and glared at him. When she realized he couldn't see it, she hissed, "Quiet!" He stilled and she listened hard for anyone coming to investigate, but the chaos outside must've hidden the noise.

"Sorry," Chuck said, sounding chastened.

Sarah relaxed when it became apparent no one was coming. "'Eureka'?" she asked incredulously.

"I've always wanted to say it," Chuck explained defensively. "Anyway, I found the remote."

"It's about time," Sarah said, still sounding irritated, but she was relieved. Her nerves had been slowly building while Chuck was searching for the remote. If he didn't find it, they would be stuck in there. Who knew if they could get across the store safely again, especially with Chuck's nearly disastrous track record?

Chuck collapsed on the couch next to Sarah, sinking into the old couch and inadvertently sliding her toward him. She quickly shifted away from him before he noticed.

"Okay," he said quietly to himself. "Okaaaaay, right. I know what I'm doing."

Sarah eyed him. "Chuck? You _do_ know what you're doing, right?"

"Yeah, of course!" he answered quickly before looking back at the remote in his hand. "I just… haven't had to do this in a veeeery long time."

Sarah leaned over to look at the remote over his shoulder, careful not to touch him. "Isn't there a power button?" she asked.

"Of course there's a power button, Sarah," Chuck said. "But I want to know what I'm doing completely before I start."

Sarah levelled a look at him. "Since when has that ever stopped you from doing anything before?"

"Well, I tend to act more carefully when I'm stuck in the evil lair of evil people."

"That is not true at all. I've been there on several occasions when that is the exact opposite of what you did."

"Well, that's not what's important." Chuck changed the subject and hunched over the remote. "I think… if I press this… then the secure channel to the General will open. I think."

"Why aren't you sure? You work here."

"It's been a long time since I've had to use the showroom to talk to you guys, okay?" Chuck said defensively. "Now I just go to Castle. But since that is obviously no longer an option…" He hesitantly moved his finger over a button. "Okay, I can't really read the buttons on this without more light, but I think this one is the right one."

"You'd better be right," Sarah warned him.

"I know, I know. Okay. One, two, three." And he pressed the button.

The television flickered to life, illuminating the entire room in harsh, blinding light. Sarah's heart rose for an instant before sound blared from the speakers, so loudly that Chuck jumped and almost fell off the couch. Sarah flinched and grabbed Chuck's arm automatically with one hand, the other immediately at her holster.

"But Weston!" a shrill woman's voice shrieked through the speakers. "It's not what it looked like! I swear!"

Chuck was fumbling with the remote frantically and Sarah was practically tearing it from his grip, trying to turn it off herself. A man, Weston, replied onscreen. His deep voice at its volume almost made Sarah's teeth vibrate in her skull. "No. It's over, Maria. I should have known that you never loved me. I should have known that you would take my vulnerable heart and tear it into sh-"

Chuck finally found the power button, and the silence that followed was deafening. Sarah's heart was pounding against her ribs, blood roaring in her ears. The room was completely dark again as her eyes struggled to adjust. She was still gripping Chuck's arm tightly, but he didn't resist. He felt as tense as she was. She mentally readied herself for action. Someone had to have heard that. There was no way they could get _that_ lucky.

"Oops," Chuck whispered.

There was shouting outside.

Sarah finally moved. "Come on!" She stood and cast around, ignoring the panic that was sitting in her stomach like a rock. She could still only barely see shadows in the room, but she could see enough when Chuck finally freaked out and hurdled over the back of the couch from his sitting position.

"Sarah!" he whisper-shouted, his knuckles white on the couch. "What do we do?" His voice was thick with fear.

Her first reaction was to shout _I don't know!_ angrily, followed by _Run for your life!_ But the analytical part of her brain took over before her emotions let her ruin the situation beyond repair by acting on those first impulses. This is what she was trained for. Just like she had practiced.

Her eyes had fully readjusted again, and she looked around, her gaze skipping around, trying to find somewhere to hide before anyone came in to investigate. She hurriedly asked Chuck if he knew of a good hiding spot.

He did not.

The noise outside was getting louder. Someone was walking over. Chuck was frozen in the corner, waiting for Sarah to come up with a brilliant plan and doing absolutely nothing helpful.

Sarah kept scanning her environment, but she could find nowhere to hide. The room was small and simple. There was nowhere to hide other than behind the couch, which wasn't near enough cover for the both of them.

They were running out of time. Whoever it was that was coming was getting close.

"Get down!" Sarah hissed at Chuck, who was standing behind the couch.

His eyes rounded. "What? He's gonna see me!"

"Just trust me!" Sarah didn't wait for a response before dashing over to the door. She pressed herself to the wall behind it and met Chuck's eyes. His panic and confusion was written all over his face, but he slowly knelt. As his face disappeared behind the sofa, Sarah found herself wishing she could join him and reassure him, but there was no time.

"Simon!" A voice Sarah finally recognized as Jake's called from outside the door. "I forgot to check for anyone in the restrooms!"

Simon responded with an unprintable word. "Then go check them!"

"I'm busy! Can you just be helpful for one goddamn second?"

"Yeah, Simon!" Maddie shouted from another corner of the store. "Be helpful!"

"Shut up, Maddie!" Simon and Jake called in unison. Simon continued, "Why don't _you_ go check the restrooms?"

"What?" Maddie asked in a shrill voice. "No!" But she was outvoted and eventually shouted into compliance. She left for the bathrooms with a few choice words tossed over her shoulder. Sarah felt a chill go down her spine at the thought of Chuck and Casey treating her like that. She was lucky to be assigned to the people she was and not people like Simon and Jake.

Footsteps neared the door, and she stiffened, pressing her back against the wall. It sounded to her like her heartbeat was echoing through the room. It pounded against her ribs, and she closed her eyes to the dark room, concentrating on her hearing. Jake was getting closer…

She almost flinched when his hand finally hit the door handle and turned it. He strode into the room confidently, searching a little for the lightswitch before flicking it on. The fluorescent light seared into Sarah's eyes, and she squeezed them for a few seconds, waiting for them to adjust.

Jake wasn't moving, and when she was finally able to squint her eyes open, she saw he was just standing in front of the door, so close she could almost touch him. His hands were on his hips as he looked around. His gaze landed on the television. "That sounded like the TV," he muttered. "The name Weston sounds familiar, I guess…" He walked toward it and spent a few seconds looking for the wires. "Maybe something shorted out," he reasoned. "That probably could happen, right? I think that's what bad wires do. Short out." He didn't sound confident.

He crouched and opened a cabinet. "I mean, I'm no expert on TV's, but it… it could happen."

As he was talking to himself, Sarah saw the top of Chuck's head peek out from behind the couch. He made eye contact with her and looked pointedly at Jake. _What do we do?_ he mouthed to her.

She raised a finger and mouthed back, _Trust me._

He paused and glanced back at Jake, but nodded and retreated back behind the couch.

Just then, Jake grunted under his breath. "I have no idea what I'm doing," he said, frustrated. He was holding two wires in his hands and looking back and forth between them.

Sarah took a small step toward him.

"I mean, we're in a electronics store, right? Surely they would have fixed their TV by now."

Sarah took another step, her hand reaching for her pistol in its holster on her waist.

"But who am I kidding? It's literally called the Buy More. What kind of morons must be running a store called the _Buy More_?"

She carefully pulled out her pistol and took one more step. She was less than three feet from Jake, who was still crouched.

Chuck saw her over the rim of the couch and his jaw dropped. _What the heck are you doing?_ he mouthed.

Sarah felt the urge to shrug, but figured that would not help calm him down.

Chuck's eyes were wide. He motioned frantically. _Get back!_

"Oh!" Jake suddenly stood, and Sarah jerked her hand up reflexively, the pistol aimed at his back. " _The Sound of Breaking Hearts_! Weston's the main character!"

Sarah and Chuck exchanged glances.

"I knew I recognized that scene," Jake said, sounding proud of himself. "I guess I'll just tell Preach it was a malfunction," he finally concluded. He turned to walk out and froze immediately when he saw Sarah, who was still just standing there in the middle of the room. He and Sarah stared at each other for a full second. "Wha-!" he started to shout.

Sarah flipped the pistol in her hand and whacked him in the face.

There was silence, then Chuck stood. "Well," he said, his voice still low. "That was one way of taking care of the situation."

"Well, you weren't helping," Sarah responded, suddenly defensive.

"But what are we supposed to do with him now?" Chuck asked as Sarah hurried to the door and closed it. "Just ask him politely to not tell anyone that we're here?"

"No, of course not."

"What, are you gonna tie him up and hope no one walks in and finds him?"

She looked at him steadily.

Realization lit up his face. "No," he said firmly. "It's not going to work!"

Now she did shrug. "What else can we do?"

"Something else!" Chuck protested, still quietly. "We're just trying to get Ellie and Awesome and get out of here, not kidnap someone else!"

Sarah contemplated Jake, who was crumpled in a ball on the floor. "I mean, it's not like we can carry him out of here on our backs or something," she conceded. And despite what she had just said, Chuck recognized something in the glint in her eyes.

"Sarah!" He appeared to be restraining himself from grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. "I thought you the reason you came along was to stop _me_ from doing something stupid!"

"I am, but there is a fine line between stupid and brilliant," Sarah said, her head cocked to the side as she considered Jake's unconscious form. "I walk that line."

"There is also a fine line between being clever and trying to get yourself killed!" Chuck hurried over to the window and peeked past the curtain. "Look, we probably have a few minutes before anyone decides to come looking for him-"

"Have you heard them talking to each other?" Sarah asked from behind him. "They aren't going to come looking for him."

"They may not like each other, but they'll still notice he's missing. They aren't stupid."

Sarah snorted.

"They're not completely stupid," Chuck amended. He let the curtain fall closed and turned to look at her. There was a moment of silence as he considered what to say next. Sarah raised her eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

"Okay," he finally said. "What exactly are you planning to do?"

"Well, we can't take him with us with him unconscious like this…" she pondered.

"Or at all," Chuck added.

"So I guess we leave him. I hadn't really thought the entire thing through yet."

This time, Chuck raised an eyebrow at her.

"I had very little time!" Sarah protested.

Chuck snorted, but backed off. Sarah looked back at the body on the floor. She gestured to Chuck and was about to ask him to help her get it on the couch, but she was interrupted by noise outside. Again.

"Everyone! Shut up!" a gruff voice said. Sarah recognized it as someone Jake had called Preacher. "You'll all get your turn!" His voice was coming from the front of the store. Sarah hadn't heard who he was talking to, but she guessed they were all up front with him.

 _They were all up front_.

"Aaaanyway," Chuck started to say."

Sarah hushed him. "Chuck," she whispered. "They're all up front."

He looked confused. "What? How can you-"

" _Trust me_!" she whispered forcefully. She suddenly realized how many times she had said that to him in the past five minutes and how all that had turned out, but ignored the thought and ran to the door. She began to open it, checking that no one was around, just in case she was wrong about where they were. Which was improbable, of course, but better safe than sorry.

"No, seriously," Chuck said flatly. He hadn't moved to follow her. "How the heck to do you know that. I would like to know."

Sarah stopped and looked at him. "What part of 'Trust me' do you not understand? Just come on!"

He didn't seem very confident in her, but he nodded anyway and joined her at the door. She glanced at him one last time before pulling the door open. When no one immediately screamed at them or tried to tackle them, she released the breath she wasn't aware she had been holding. "Okay," she breathed. "I think we're okay."

"I thought you said you knew we were okay," Chuck pointed out.

Sarah glared at him. "I will leave you here," she threatened calmly.

He gulped subtly. "Well, if you say we're okay, then we're okay," he decided. "Let's go. Ladies first."

"Thanks," Sarah said sarcastically. She led the way out of the room, and Chuck followed carefully. They couldn't hear or see anyone in the back of the store with them. It was eerily quiet. It seemed like Sarah was right; everyone seemed to be up front. For some reason.

"Where did everyone go?" Chuck said in her ear.

The feeling of his breath tickling her ear almost made her jump. She controlled herself before saying, "I think they're all in the front. Like I said."

"How can you possibly know-" Chuck began to ask, irritated. He caught a glimpse of Sarah's face, however, and caught himself. "-how to move so quietly? Seriously, I can't hear you and I'm inches away."

"Nice save," Sarah said dryly.

"Thank you," Chuck said, sounding almost proud of himself. Then he paused. "What about the General?" he asked. "We were trying to get a hold of her with the TV, remember?"

Sarah cursed under her breath. "Of course I remember, and we don't have time."

"Sarah, we can't just wing this by ourselves! We need some kind of backup."

She had finally had enough. She turned on her heel and grabbed Chuck by the collar. Her nose was inches from his. They were hiding in the middle of an aisle. Anyone who happened to walk by would be able to see them. "Listen to me," she said in a low, threatening voice. "Everyone is up front, so we are going to go find Ellie and Awesome while they're distracted and take the back way out, okay? And you are going to stay behind me and let me take care of _everything_. You are not going to try to be a hero and get yourself or anyone else killed."

Chuck stared at her, his eyes crossed slightly from looking down at her. "Okay, okay," he said, raising his hands in surrender. "Sorry."

Sarah released her hold on him and smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "Let's go," she said, and walked away. Chuck stared after her and took a breath, trying to calm his pulse. Sarah heard his pause behind her and smiled quietly to herself, this time for real. For a split second, she forgot their situation and was caught up in imagining the shocked look on his face, because she couldn't turn around and look for it now that she had already started her dramatic exit.

But she was quickly reminded of the danger they were in when she heard more voices coming from up front, an escalating cacophony of arguments, and she got serious. She was still holding her pistol, and she could almost feel Chuck up behind her, he was so close. She ignored him breathing down her neck and checked down the next aisle. They had to cross the store again. And this time, she was not going to let Chuck cross alone.

For purely safety reasons, of course. He almost got himself killed last time.

But that didn't stop her from searching for him behind her with one hand and taking his before taking a single step without him.

 **Okay. Things have gotten slightly crazy in the life area, and I'm probably going to get a job soon, but don't worry. I intend to finish the story, one way or another. Also, this chapter was written in small portions over a long(ish) period of time, so it may seem a bit meandering. But I hope that doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the story.**

 **As always, thanks for reading!**


	15. Chapter 14

**I'm alive! It's a miracle!**

Ellie shifted uncomfortably. Devon had fallen asleep after drinking six energy drinks. He usually was able to control himself, but under the stress of the situation he had binged on the first thing he saw. After drink number six, he eventually crashed and had now been sleeping for at least an hour. His head was in Ellie's lap and he was snoring softly. The sound used to be annoying, but Ellie had grown used to it over the years, and now it soothed her frayed nerves, even though the position Ellie was sitting in was no longer comfortable and she couldn't move because of Devon.

Shouting started in the front of the store, and Ellie rolled her eyes. The people who had taken over the store had been fighting on and off the entire time. They were a team in the shallowest meaning of the word. They worked together, but they hated each other, and they made no effort to hide it. Like Preacher and Jake, as Ellie had learned they were named. The two weren't able to have a short conversation before devolving into insults.

Devon made a noise and Ellie glanced down at him. He looked almost angelic in his sleep. Similar to when he was awake, too, actually. Devon was just…. It was hard for Ellie to describe him in one word. Anyone else would just say that he was perfect or, more common, that he was awesome. Once upon a time, Ellie would have said that too. But she knew him better now, better than anyone else (she thought). She knew his quirks and flaws (yes, he had them), and he was annoying a lot of the time. Like how he found a way to use 'awesome' in _every_ conversation he was engaged in.

There was a blast of noise from the rear of the store, closer to where Ellie was sitting. She jerked violently, almost accidentally hitting Devon in the face, but relaxed when she recognized the scene. "But Weston!" a woman screeched, backed up with swelling and dramatic music. "It's not what it looks like!"

The noise woke Devon, who jerked up in a confusion of limbs. His bleary blue eyes found Ellie's, and she smiled calmingly at him. "Don't worry, babe," she said before he asked anything. She patted him on the bicep absently. "Weston just found out that Maria was cheating on him with Marcus. It's not a big deal."

Devon's confusion cleared. "Oh, I see." He smirked. "That scene's pretty awesome."

Ellie furrowed her eyebrows at him. "They break up, Devon. How is that awesome?"

"Because Maria is totally not worth Weston's time," Devon said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I still don't understand why Weston even went for her in the first place. He totally ignored Jessica." Men were shouting in the background again. Ellie ignored them.

" _Jessica?_ " she repeated in horror. "Oh, I forgot for a second that you like _Jessica_ more than Katherine."

"Uh, yeah, of course I do. Who planned the romantic picnic in the park? Who bought him chocolates when he wasn't feeling awesome? Jessica. And what was Katherine doing? She was taking care of her _pet bird_."

"It is a very rare species of macaw that requires a lot of attention, you know that!" Ellie said defensively.

Devon spun on his butt to face his girlfriend fully. He sat with his legs crossed, his arms resting on his knees. "Then why should Weston date a girl who cares more about her _bird_ than about him?"

"That is not true!" Ellie protested. "She skipped bird bath day to go out with him!"

"Yeah, but we all know that that stupid bird is what she was thinking about the entire day. Plus, they have no chemistry on screen."

"Says the guy who prefers Jessica, the one who literally got cast because she's the director's niece."

"Who cares why she got cast? Jessica loves him more that Katherine "Bird-Lady" does, end of discussion."

Ellie gasped dramatically. "You take that back! Katherine made a collage of his face for his birthday!"

"Jessica bought him an entire bouquet made out of chocolate!"

"Katherine abandoned her super rich and hot boyfriend for him because she realized she was in love with Weston and not that stupid egotistical jerk!"

"Jessica skipped her own _mother's funeral_ to go on a date with him!"

Ellie shook her head vehemently and opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by someone next to them. "Oh, my God," a girl said. She looked about college age, and her phone was lying on the floor beside her, its battery dead. She had called the police with it earlier, but they weren't able to get her out, so she just wasted the rest of the battery playing some game. "Will you please both just shut up?" she asked.

Devon turned to look at her. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today," he observed. As he said it, Ellie noticed that his hair wasn't messed up at all from sleeping, and he was already completely awake. Apparently he had already slept off the energy drink crash. She silently envied his magical hair.

The girl glared at Devon with narrowed brown eyes. "We have been _kidnapped_ , you idiot," she hissed.

"I know that," Devon said. "But that's no reason to act so rude. That is so not-"

"I swear, if you say 'awesome' one more time, I will take someone's gun and shoot you."

Devon closed his mouth sullenly and looked back at Ellie for support. She just shrugged. _Nothing?_ he mouthed at her. She smiled sarcastically at him, and he grinned. "You are useless," he said, with no hostility behind the words.

"I am not!" Ellie said immediately, but Devon pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head. She grinned into his shoulder.

The girl made a retching noise, and Ellie pulled back. She kept her hand on Devon's thigh as he shifted and leaned back against the shelves she was sitting against. He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. "So, babe," he started.

The girl retched again.

"Do you think we should try to get out of here now?"

Ellie frowned. "Well, no. There are like a hundred guys in here with guns. I think that would be an absolutely horrible idea."

Devon shrugged. "I don't know. I think it's a better idea than just sitting here."

"But that's what we have been doing for the past few hours."

"Yeah, but it seemed like a better idea back then, when the police hadn't been sitting out front doing nothing to help us out."

Ellie pursed her lips. "I don't know. I think we should just wait here." She looked around, at the mostly full shelves of electronic appliances that no one would need. The girl was completely ignoring them now, as far away as she could get without crossing the line that had been established by Caleb, the guy who had been watching them. He had left earlier to take a restroom break, but that had been thirty minutes ago. He had probably gotten sick of having the most boring job (watching prisoners that just refused to give him a reason to shoot them) and bailed.

"I was thinking that there's probably some way out the back," Devon continued anyway. "We could go find it and sneak out."

"Easy as that," Ellie said flatly.

"Well," Devon hedged. "There might be a small amount of danger involved, but-"

"A small amount is too big an amount," Ellie pronounced with finality. "It's a bad idea."

"But Ellie!" Devon protested. "We have to do something!" As he said it, a loud ringing echoed through the store. "They called!" someone yelled, and there was a loud crashing and thudding as people flooded to the front. Someone sprinted right through their little hostage circle. He stopped long enough to tell them to stay where they were unless they wanted to get shot, then was off.

"You heard the man," Ellie said after a pause. "We're staying here."

"But they all just went to the front!" Devon said. "We can go the other way and avoid them."

"There is no way everyone in the store went up there," Ellie said skeptically "That would be incredibly stupid of them."

"But possible," Devon said. He held her gaze and stared at her intently.

"Dev," she tried. "Please, it's a horrible idea."

"I think you mean an _awesome_ one."

"No. No, I don't."

But Devon was already getting off the floor. He extended his hand to her and smiled calmingly. "It'll be fine," he reassured her.

Ellie crossed her arms. "No, it will not be _fine_. Now sit down before they see you and shoot you."

But Devon wouldn't be persuaded. He bent down, grabbed Ellie by the arms and lifted her easily to her feet. When she struggled, he swept her up over his shoulder with a smirk. "Devon!" she hissed. "They're going to see us! You're too tall!"

Devon immediately crouched again, but didn't look worried. "Ellie, babe, we gotta go before they change their minds and shoot us," he tried again.

She said nothing until he set her back down. She straightened her shirt and huffed. "I still think this is the worst idea you've had in a very long time," she said. "Just so we're clear."

Devon nodded. "Understood."

Ellie pressed her lips together as she looked at him, then sighed. "Fine."

Devon's face lit up, and he drew in a breath to let out a shout. "That's-!" Ellie lunged toward him and frantically covered his mouth with both of her hands. She met his eyes and widened them warningly. The college girl rolled her eyes again.

Devon removed Ellie's hands carefully, then whispered, "That's awesome!"

Ellie fought the smile that was creeping onto her face. "Come on." She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him, but he stayed put.

He raised his finger. "I think I should be the leader of this expedition, El."

"What? Why?"

"Because it was my idea." He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Ellie took a moment to calm herself, then said, "Devon, that makes absolutely no sense, but because I love you, go ahead."

Devon grinned at her goofily. "Thanks, babe." He planted a kiss on her cheek. Ellie caught one last glimpse of the college girl pretending to puke before Devon pulled her away.

Ellie recognized the difference in him immediately, even from the back. He was now officially "in the zone". He may have been laughing and joking around earlier, but Ellie knew that if she could see him from the front, she would see his serious face that he used when he was focusing on something really important: eyebrows drawn together over narrowed eyes that betrayed no emotion other than complete concentration, his jaw set. It showed in the way he held himself as well, although now that he was crawling around behind some shelves in a Buy More, it looked a little more ridiculous. He looked like some secret agent infiltrating a top secret organization.

The thought of such a thing occurring in a town like Burbank, and even more, that Devon would ever get involved in something like that, made Ellie want to laugh.

After pausing to look around a corner, Devon let go of Ellie's hand and sprinted forward down the aisle. He slid in behind a shelf on the opposite side and waited a few seconds before peeking out to wave Ellie over.

Ellie was not nearly as athletic as her boyfriend, so when she reached his shelf and tried to slide behind it, something she had never felt the need to do before, she misjudged everything and crashed into it instead. The entire shelf shook, and while Devon was able to catch anything that fell off on their side, there was nothing he could do about the sounds of shattering glass on the other side.

Ellie cursed under her breath. Devon tried to smother the smirk growing on his face. Ellie didn't curse often- neither of them did- and when she did, he found it absolutely adorable. Just like he found everything else she did adorable. It annoyed her, especially when she was angry at him.

Voices echoed through the room from the front. Ellie and Devon shared a glance, then Devon grabbed her hand again and took off, dragging her behind him as they ran. Elie's legs were nowhere near as long as Devon's, so she struggled to keep up. But when she heard the shouts behind her getting closer, she found she had no problem with Devon running as fast as he could, even if that meant he was dragging her.

"Hey!" a man shouted. "What's going on?!"

"The hostages are escaping!" a woman shrieked in answer as she rounded a corner and came running after them. "Caleb! You had one job!"

"It was boring!" Caleb responded as he vaulted the desk in the middle of the room. "You try staring for hours at some strangers who hate you and see how long you last!"

"We've all done it before, and none of us let them escape!"

"Will you all please shut up!" a deep, powerful voice boomed.

"You shut up, Preacher!" Caleb shot back and then promptly hit his hip on one of the shelves, spun in the air as he left his feet, and hit the ground with a wail. Almost simultaneously, there was a sudden uproar on the other side of the store. More shouting rang out into the room. "Stop! Stop or I shoot!"

Ellie risked a glance over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of someone tearing through the room in the opposite direction. He was too far away for her to recognize him, but his short, curly hair suggested he was a guy. He followed closely by a woman with long blonde hair. Already, most of the people had veered from Ellie's trail and were chasing the other pair. For some reason, they seemed to take higher priority over two escaping hostages.

Ellie started to slow as her brain began to process, but Devon pulled her forward. They reached a door labelled "Employees Only" and crashed through to the other side. They sprinted down the hall and made a few turns before it was clear Devon had no clue where he was going. But they could hear someone behind them in the corridor and couldn't stop moving.

Until they reached a dead end.

Devon cursed. They couldn't turn around without running into their captors, so Ellie opened a random door and locked it behind them once her boyfriend followed her.

They were in a break room, one wall lined with green lockers. A few tables and chairs were in the middle of the room in front of a couple vending machines. She could see nowhere to hide other than under the tables, which would work for approximately 2 seconds.

"Now what?" she asked, panting.

Devon scratched the back of his head as he looked around. "I, uh, don't really know. I meant to get to the storage room, because I think there's a back exit in there, but we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere."

Ellie sighed and sat down at a table. "Devon…"

"What?" he asked in a high-pitched voice. "We had to do something."

"No, we really didn't. And now we're probably going to get shot."

"No," Devon said decidedly. "I am not going to let you get shot, Eleanor Bartowski. You have my word on that."

"I'm going to get shot, Devon. You probably are too, because we're locked in a break room while someone with a gun is probably making his way toward us right now."

"Then we need to find some other way out," Devon said.

"It's not that easy, babe," Ellie tried, even though she could hear the stubbornness in his voice.

Devon wasn't listening. "Do you think we could fit in those air vents?" he asked, pointing at one near the ceiling. "That's what they do in the movies."

Ellie didn't even bother to look. "You're way too big to fit inside an air vent, Devon."

He put his hands on his hips. "Hmm, you're right."

Ellie hated to be so pessimistic, but she was a realist, and she recognized that there was no way they could get out of this one barring a miracle. She stood and walked toward her boyfriend. "Look, Devon, I…"

After a pause, Devon looked at her, confused. "You what?"

Ellie had stopped in her tracks and was staring at the lockers. "Do you see that?" she asked.

Devon turned. "Uh… nope. Unless you mean those pictures in Lester's locker. Although I can think of no reason why you would want to draw attention to those."

Ellie brushed past him lightly and stopped in front of them. Devon looked a little disgusted. "You really want to look at those? And I thought I knew you pretty well."

"No, Devon, of course not," Ellie said. "But these lockers look weird."

"What do you mean?" Devon came up and looked at them over Ellie's shoulder.

"There's a gap between these two. Do you see it?"

Devon frowned. "Yeah, but that could just mean they were installed badly."

Ellie said nothing. Devon said nothing. Ellie got her fingers in between the lockers and pulled a little. Devon was confused, but still said nothing.

The locker swung away from the wall, revealing a metal door that was slightly cracked open, showing a dark hallway behind it.

Devon stuttered a bit before managing to get out, "What in the name of all that is good and holy is that?"

Ellie's jaw was dropped. "I, uh… have no idea."

There was a pause. Then Devon grinned. "Nice one, babe! Let's go!"

Elie took a step back. "Wait a second, we can't just go around walking through random secret passages. Who knows what kind of messed up stuff could be hiding in there?"

"In case you'd forgotten, babe, we're kind of running for our lives here. There's not much of a choice here," Devon said, trying to usher her in ahead of him. As if on cue, there was a loud bang from inside the hall and a shout of pain (" _Dude, that was right my my ear!" "Then go away!" "I can't, or you're gonna mess this up again!" "I am not!"_ etc _._ ).

Ellie took a breath, then said, "Okay. But if we get killed because of this, you're sleeping on the couch tonight."

"Awesome."

 **Sorry, I kind of lost inspiration for a bit there after finals. Hopefully, introducing these two into the story will help with that. I do plan on finishing this, however long it may take.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	16. Chapter 15

Lester watched in thinly veiled disgust as Jeff searched through the trash in his van. "What did you say we're looking for?" he asked.

Jeff briefly glanced at a crushed can for a second before tossing it over his shoulder. He spoke with a slight lisp from accidentally burning his tongue on a hair iron the day before. No one had yet been able to get him to say why he had a hair iron to begin with. "We've been over thith, Lethter. I bought thome thpy gear from Walmart a few weekth ago. It should be in here thomewhere."

Lester was perched uncomfortably on the edge of the passenger seat, trying to touch as little material as possible. "You know, the Buy More has spy gear you could've gotten."

Jeff paused and wrinkled his nose. "Well, yeah, but Walmart ith better."

Lester winced. "Ouch. But true. Anyway, did you have a reason to buy spy gear from Walmart?"

Jeff huffed. "Can you pleathe thtop athking me that? I have my perthonal reathonth thethe thingth, okay?"

Lester raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. He knew Jeff would probably wind up telling him anyway.

Sure enough, after a few seconds, Jeff said, "You know that new girl who workth here now?"

"Ah," Lester nodded in understanding. He smoothed down his greasy hair. "Yes, Sophie is… quite a specimen."

Jeff didn't notice the look on Lester's face. He bent down to look under a back seat. "Aha!" he shouted.

Lester, lost in his daydream about Sophie, jumped with a screech and whacked his knee on the dashboard. "Ow! What?"

Jeff held up two boxes. "I found them," he said with an dopey grin that didn't quite reach his heavy-lidded blue eyes.

Lester glared at him. "Jeff, what have I told you about scaring me like that?"

Jeff pouted. "I didn't mean to. I just got really exthited."

Lester waved him off. "Whatever. Now, what do you have?"

Jeff's grin returned. He held up the boxes. "Thith one has a pair of nightvision goggleth and an eavethdropping kit. Thith jutht hath a pair of walkie talkieth." On the fronts of the boxes were pictures of the same teenaged boy using the equipment with a mischievous look on his face.

Lester's eyes fixed on the eavesdropping kit. "Dibs on the goggle box," he declared immediately.

Jeff's face fell. "But I wanted the goggleth…"

Lester ignored him, snatched the box from him, and tore open the top. He pulled out the goggles, which resembled a high-tech pair of ski goggles, and looked them over, then set them in his lap and took out the eavesdropping kit. It looked like a gun with a clear satellite dish stuck on the front, with small, cheap headphones attached.

Lester grinned like a kid on Christmas who had just been given the bazooka he had always wanted. Jeff, meanwhile, was fiddling with the walkie talkies. He pulled up an antenna on one of them and flipped a switch. Static immediately filled the van. "Got it!" he announced proudly and handed it to Lester, who took it absentmindedly. He had set down the listening device and now held the goggles.

"So these let you see in the dark?" he asked.

Jeff nodded, still fiddling with the second walkie talkie.

Lester held the goggles up to his eyes and looked through them. "Everything looks the same," he said skeptically.

"You have to turn them on, Lethter. Here, I have some batterieth." And from some hidden crevice on his person, Jeff pulled out four triple A batteries.

Lester stared at them with apprehension. "Jeff, where did that come from?"

Jeff frowned at him. "My pocket, obviouthly."

Lester narrowed his eyes at Jeff, who scratched his head and scrunched his nose. "Uh, do you want them?"

Lester heaved a sigh and hesitantly took them. "Fine. But this never happened, okay?"

Jeff's face froze in an unattractive thinking pose as his brain tried to process. "It jutht did happen, Lethter."

Lester hit his lap with the goggles in frustration. "Just don't tell anybody, okay? My mother already thinks I'm a loser. She can't know that I took some questionable batteries in your questionable van that you had hidden… _somewhere..._ to power a kid's toy."

Jeff shrugged. "She knowth enough. You can't think much lower in her mind than you have already. She doethn't even know about the jellyfish inthident yet."

Lester ignored him and popped the cover off the battery compartment. After a few minutes spent trying to fit the batteries in, he finally closed it. "Okay. Are you ready to test these bad boys out?" he asked.

Jeff's dull eyes lit up for a brief second. "Doeth that mean I get to try them on firtht?"

"No, of course not," Lester said dismissively. He tried to pull them on over his head, but the strap was set too small. After messing with it, they found that it would only expand another inch or so, and was still too small at it's largest. It was designed for children to play with, but Lester forced it on and ignored how the rims of the goggles pressed uncomfortably into his face.

"How do I look?" he asked Jeff.

Jeff nodded mindlessly, his eyes stuck on the driver's seat.

When he didn't actually say anything, Lester gave up and tilted the rearview mirror so he could look at himself. After a few seconds, he nodded appreciatively and hopped out of the car. "Come on, Jeff," he called before he shut the passenger door. Jeff crawled out the back and met Lester as he led the way across the street.

Jeff and Lester had been two of the first people to escape the Buy More when the bullets started flying. They had actually beat most of the few customers there to the doors by clawing past them and throwing them aside into the aisles.

And they would do it again in a heartbeat.

Usually, Jeff and Lester would do anything to escape the Buy More and avoid having to work. Now that the store was quarantined by a police line and there were rumors floating around that the FBI were about to get involved and that the store had been overrun by very well-armed men, Lester knew that there was only one logical decision to make.

He had to get back in and see what the heck was happening. He would never again get the chance to see the FBI in action like this. He could get a few pictures, video some people getting shot, maybe get an autograph or two. Not many people knew it, but one of Lester's childhood dreams had been to become a police officer. He had aspired to uphold the law and beat up bad guys and become a hero, until he realized how much work he would have to put into it. There would be way too much working out and desk work to get to the point he wanted to reach.

So he just settled with working at his local Buy More. It was basically the same thing. He got to use guns without having to go through the trouble of getting a license. Sure, the guns shot nerf bullets, but he would take what he could get.

Jeff had parked a few streets away from where all the action was. They would reach the back of the store in a minute or two, and Lester had the key to the loading area. They should be able to get in unnoticed that way. Jeff had been sent to scope it out, and they had seen enough spy movies to know how to time guard shifts.

After crossing a few streets, crouching behind trashcans and rolling between covers in the universally-accepted spy walk, the two crouched behind a bush. Lester peered through the leaves, then turned to look at Jeff. "Okay," he said self-importantly. "There's one guard by the corner, and… it's almost 7:00. He should be leaving soon, right?"

Jeff frowned. "How do you know that?"

Lester stared at him. "That's what you told me. After scoping the place out, you said that they change shifts every half hour, so they should switch at seven."

Jeff smiled dopily. "Oh, yeah. Sounds good."

Lester rubbed his forehead. "You did actually scope this all out, right?"

"I mean, I showed up and I watched for a little while, but it was really boring, and there's this bakery nearby…"

"Ugh," Lester groaned. "Why do I even try with you?"

Jeff was too caught up in his dreams about pastries to answer.

Lester glanced at his watch. 6:58. Even if Jeff had been lying completely, seven seemed like a reasonable hour to change shifts. At least, Lester hoped it was. He didn't want to spend much longer hiding behind what felt like a thorny bush from hell.

He pulled a few thorns out of his sleeve and took out a little pair of plastic yellow binoculars from under his shirt, hanging on a cord around his neck. Looking through it, he was able to see the guard a little closer, enough to see that it was a woman who was taking a smoke break. He shook his head condescendingly.

Jeff looked at him sleepily and hiccupped.

Lester ignored him and continued to watch the woman through his toy binoculars. After a while, he checked his watch. 7:04. Maybe they were late, but the more likely situation was that Jeff was completely wrong and there was no guard change at 7:00. They would have to sneak in the old-fashioned way.

Lester stuffed the binoculars back under his shirt and readjusted his goggles. "Okay, Jeff," he said, shaking Jeff out of his pastry-induced trance. "We're gonna have to 007 this, alright?"

Jeff blinked, and his eyes sharpened slightly. "Okay," he said simply.

Lester narrowed his eyes at the guard, who hadn't moved in the six minutes Lester had been watching her. "We're going to have to get behind that guard and knock her out with something," he said. "Do you have something we can whack her with, like a big rock or something?"

Jeff looked around and picked up a small stick. "Will this work?"

"No!" Lester smacked it out of his hands. "We need something heavy!"

Jeff pressed his thin lips together. "I don't see anything like that."

After searching around himself, Lester had to agree. The street was clean and they were in a developed area where there was little nature still left. Unless they could find some way to rip a street sign out of the concrete and wield it like a giant hammer, they would have to improvise.

Lester rubbed his hands together. He could search through the trash cans on the road and try to fashion something out of empty cans and bottles, maybe fill them with pebbles and wield them like a smaller hammer. The only problem with that was that he didn't trust Jeff with anything so deadly.

That was when Lester knew. He was going to have to sneak in.

Lester smoothed his hair back. His entire life had been preparing him for this moment.

"Jeff, follow me," he whispered. Getting into a crouch, he looked both ways and began to scuttle forward across the road, his eyes glued to the back of the woman's head. She was still smoking, but the cigarette was burning dangerously low. She was bound to turn around at any moment. Lester would have to be prepared.

He tightened his grip on his plastic walkie talkie. If needed, he could always just get behind her and whack her with that. But it was a last resort, and it wasn't looking like that was going to be needed. They were almost to the back of the store. In a few seconds, they would go up the stairs and through the door and the woman would never know.

Jeff tripped.

He stumbled forward and landed on the stairs to the door with a very unmanly whimper. He looked at his palms where they were scraped from hitting the concrete and showed them to Lester like a four-year-old would show his mother, completely oblivious to the woman, who had turned around and was staring at them with furrowed eyebrows. She was a big woman with large, hairy forearms and frizzy brown hair pulled up into a ponytail.

She tossed her cigarette over her shoulder. "What are you doing?" she asked in disbelief, as if she couldn't believe anyone would be stupid enough to sneak _into_ a hostage situation.

Lester hesitated before opening his mouth. He had one shot to show this woman that he was not anyone to be messed with, that she would be better off leaving him to his own devices, that he wasn't a middle-aged man with amazing hair who was stuck sneaking into his own place of work with plastic children's toys and an imbecile for a best friend.

One chance. He took a breath and calmed himself down, maintaining eye contact so she would understand that he wasn't afraid of her. (That was how you dealt with grizzly bears, right?) His mind was whirling, trying to come up with the perfect one-liner…

And he had it. It was perfect. Enough bravado to scare the woman away, but suave enough to intrigue her, to make her… want more. Lester couldn't keep the smirk off his face. This line was enough to seduce the most stubborn hipster, the most arrogant rich kid, the shyest boy who hadn't come out to his parents yet.

He opened his mouth to speak, quirking an eyebrow in anticipation of the woman's reaction. "I-"

She rolled her eyes and began to stride forward. "Never mind," she said. "You're gonna have to give me that walkie talkie now."

Lester glanced down. "Oh, this old thing?" he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. "Why would you want this? I mean, it barely even works." He raised it and hit the power button to prove to her that it didn't work. Static showing that it clearly did, in fact, work came out of the speaker.

Lester tossed it aside with an ingratiating smile and tried to step backwards but tripped over Jeff's outstretched legs and fell hard. The woman didn't stop until she was looming over them, her thick shape silhouetted by the setting sun behind her. She looked extremely bored. "Okay," she said, reaching back to pull something out of her back pocket.

It turned out to be a gun. Not a nerf gun, like Lester and Jeff were used to. A real, honest-to-God gun that shot bullets and killed people.

Lester began to babble. "Wait! Wait, please! Just think a little before you shoot us, I mean, what were we gonna do? Sneak in there? Please, no one's that stupid, I mean, all we had was some walkie talkies that I didn't even know worked and my amazing hair but PLEASE DON'T SHOOT ME I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE AND JEFF HAS A FAMIL- JEFF HAS A CAR PLEASE LET US GO I'LL NEVER-"

The woman raised the pistol and aimed it at Lester's head. "Enough talking," she said tersely.

Lester was out of words. He just stared down the barrel, his mouth open, mentally willing a rock to magically fall out of the sky and knock her out or something equally as miraculous, although he knew nothing like that would happen. It was the end of the road. He had finally bitten off more than he and Jeff could collectively chew, and Chuck wasn't there to fix it for them.

He braced himself for the bullet, his eyes squeezed shut.

There was a bang, and Lester shouted in terror.

And kept breathing.

There were more shouts and thuds, then all was quiet.

Lester slowly opened his eyes. The door to his right was open, swinging gently. Jeff had rolled forward and was on his stomach on the concrete. On top of him was a giant body that almost covered his entirely. The woman with the gun was unconscious a few feet away, with someone else lying on her legs.

Chuck lifted his head blearily. "Ugh, who smells like expired salami and donuts?"

Jeff groaned, his voice muffled by the concrete. "That would be me."

Chuck glanced down and jerked away from Jeff instinctively. He clambered to his feet as quickly as he could and brushed off his shirt. "Oh, sorry, Jeff," he said, more out of politeness than anything.

Then his brain began to work.

"Jeff _?_ " he asked in disbelief. "What in the name of-" He glanced over and saw Lester, who was still sitting on the ground with his jaw dropped. " _Lester?_ What are you doing? Don't you know there are people with guns in there? You could get hurt!"

Lester's eyes dropped down to the bloody hole in Chuck's shirt. "What- you- what?" he stuttered.

"Later, guys!" Sarah interrupted. She shot to her feet and grabbed Chuck's hand. "We're still being chased! Come on!"

" _Chased?_ " Lester yelped.

"Yes, chased," Sarah snapped at him, "and if you don't run right now, you're going to get yourself and probably the rest of us killed as well, so _move it!_ "

Lester was gone, sprinting back for the van. Jeff took after him as soon as he could get himself off the ground.

Sarah slammed the back door shut behind them, then she and Chuck followed Jeff and Lester. But instead of stopping to escape in the van with Lester and Jeff, they kept going for a few streets, then began to turn around until they had gone in a big circle around the store and were a few streets away from the front of the Buy More. Moving carefully and quietly, they snuck back into the Orange Orange and into the secret freezer door. Thankfully, Tony's men had left the frozen yogurt shop as soon as the first police cars and media vans began to show, so there was no one inside the store.

Neither Chuck or Sarah relaxed until they stepped foot in Castle. After going down the steps in silence, Chuck immediately went to the table and collapsed into a chair. His side was screaming at him to stop moving, and his shoes, which were slightly small on him and hadn't been replaced yet, were killing his feet.

Sarah sat more carefully in the seat next to him and let her head fall back with a sigh. They sat quietly for a minute or two, then Sarah straightened herself and looked at Chuck.

"So," she said. "We almost just got ourselves killed. Again."

Chuck nodded miserably. "I propose we don't do that again. Ever."

Sarah pursed her lips. "You didn't have to come. In fact, you weren't supposed to."

"Yeah, and just let you go by yourself, right?" Chuck shot back sarcastically. "Like I'm gonna let you do that."

Sarah had to restrain herself from strangling him. She said in a controlled voice, "Chuck, we have already had this conversation. Twice. It's my _job_. It's what I _do_. You work at a Buy More."

Chuck shook his head. "I'm not doing this again, Sarah," he said tiredly. "Please, just let it go."

"If I let it go, you'll just do it again!" Sarah said, frustrated. "Chuck, I have to make sure you're safe, okay? Why can't you get that through your thick skull?"

Chuck's head shot up. "This isn't my fault!"

"Then whose is it?" Sarah asked, almost shouting now. "It's certainly not mine!"

"All I want to do is help-"

"The best way you can help is to stay out of it!"

"You know I can't do that!"

"I know you _won't_ , which isn't that same thing! Why won't you just listen to me for one-"

"Because I won't let you go alone!"

"Why not? I can handle myself, I have for years, I'm used to it-"

"But you don't have to!" Chuck roared, slamming his hand on the table.

Sarah was startled into silence.

Both were panting. "Look," Chuck said in a pained voice. "You don't have to continue to live life like this, alone because you choose to be. There are people who care about you, who would miss you if you left. I'm- Look, if you die, I- I don't know what I would do, okay?"

Sarah's blue eyes bored into his. "What are you saying?" she asked, softly this time.

Chuck stared at her. He swallowed visibly, painfully, and broke eye contact. His head dropped. Staring at the floor, he whispered, "You can't go and leave me here. Alone."

Sarah put her hand over his. "Why not?"

He was still breathing heavily, although for a different reason this time. After a long, pregnant pause, he lifted his head to look at her. "Sarah, I-"

He stopped and both their heads whipped to the side. They watched the hallway tensely where they had heard something. Sarah stood, her fingers sliding off Chuck's hand slowly. "Did you-?" she asked.

He nodded wordlessly.

Sarah took a step forward, eying the armory to her right. She could try to make a break for it, but that would leave Chuck at the table, exposed to whoever was hiding in Castle.

He would have to come with her. She motioned to him to get up, and he did, achingly slowly. There was another thud from down the hall, and they both froze. The noise was followed by a faint cry, like someone had dropped something on their foot.

Sarah began to tiptoe toward the armory, eying another pistol, but Chuck was frozen where he stood, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Chuck!" Sarah hissed. "Come on!"

Chuck shook his head confusedly. "I think- I think I recognized that," he said haltingly, no longer crouched.

Sarah cocked her head. "What?"

And before she could stop him, he strode off down the hall. She managed to stop herself from calling after him, but immediately ran toward him as quietly as she could. "What are you doing?" she whispered when she got close enough.

Chuck began to say something, but stopped when he turned the corner.

Sarah almost collided with his back. "Chuck! What-" She screeched to a stop. "Oh, for God's sake," she said with an exasperated sigh.

Devon grinned at both of them. "Hey, guys! What's up?" His shirt was wrinkled and his hair was messed up (something neither Chuck or Sarah had ever seen before), but his blue eyes still twinkled good-naturedly.

Chuck's mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

After a few seconds, Ellie stepped out from the bathroom. "Babe, what's going on?" She jerked to a stop when she saw Chuck and Sarah. "Oh. Hey, guys," she said. Her eyes slowly narrowed. "What are you doing down here?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Chuck responded.

Devon crossed his arms. "Yeah, speaking of 'down here'," he said, making quotation marks with his fingers, "where are we?"

Sarah and Chuck exchanged glances.

They both sighed, then Chuck gestured behind him. "It's a long story. You might want to sit down."


	17. Chapter 16

**So.**

 **Hi.**

Ellie lifted her head out of her hands. "Okay, let me try this again." She pointed at Sarah. "You're a CIA agent."

Sarah nodded, leaned back in a chair and checking the magazine in her pistol.

Ellie then turned and looked at Chuck. "And you… are also a spy?"

He shrugged. "Basically."

Devon stopped pacing behind his fiancee's chair. "And you're a spy because your brain is a _computer?_ "

"Right."

"Because your old roommate Bryce sent you an email. Because he is also a spy."

"Right."

Ellie huffed. "I still can't believe that Bryce is a spy. And he framed you for cheating on your exams to protect you? That doesn't really make sense, I mean, he completely ruined your career-"

"Stay on topic, El," Chuck interrupted her.

"Oh, right." She shook her head to clear her mind. "So Bryce sent you an email that downloaded a computer into your brain."

"The Intersect," Sarah added.

"Yes, the Intersect, which is the server that holds all of the information for the CIA?"

"And the NSA," Sarah added again.

"Yeah, because Casey is also an agent?" Ellie paused. "Well, that one is a bit more obvious."

Devon was pacing again. "So why did Bryce send everything the CIA and NSA knows to you in an email with absolutely no context or anything to help you?"

Sarah was quick to interject. "What Bryce was thinking is not important. What's important is that Chuck has the Intersect now."

Ellie nodded. "And with the Intersect you can recognize any criminal in the database on sight?"

"Yep."

"And there's no way to get it out of your head…"

"Oh, believe me, we have _tried_ ," Chuck reassured her. "If anything had worked, it would be gone by now." Sarah glanced at him. He caught her eyes, but couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"So the CIA sent Sarah-" Ellie continued.

"And the NSA sent John," Devon interrupted.

"To protect you?" Ellie glared at Devon, then turned back around to look at Chuck worriedly. "Why did they both have to send an agent just to protect you? Who cares if you have a computer in your head?"

Chuck and Sarah exchanged glances. "Well," Sarah began, "the Intersect is kind of a big deal. It has a huge amount of information that belongs to CIA and NSA. If someone with less-than-good intentions were to get ahold of it, who knows what they would do with it. Besides, like you said, it also lets us- or, Chuck- recognize them on sight, which isn't good for them. They're willing to kill f-"

"What she means to say," Chuck jumped in loudly, "is that they really want it, but as long as she and Casey are here, I'm perfectly safe."

He was too late. "What did she just say?" Ellie demanded worriedly. "They're willing to _kill you?_ "

"She was exaggerating," Chuck tried. "Kind of like I'd kill for chocolate."

"You aren't chocolate, Chuck," Ellie said flatly.

"You, uh, you have a good point, there," he stammered. He looked to Sarah for help, and she sighed.

"Alright, look, Ellie." Sarah moved over and sat directly in front of her. "The job is a little dangerous, yes, and I understand why you want to keep Chuck safe. He's your little brother. But your little brother, who's not so little anymore," she commented with a meaningful glance up and down Chuck's lanky body, "is under the protection of both the CIA and the NSA, who have been tasked with protecting an entire nation for decades. We're more than capable of keeping one person safe."

Ellie didn't look convinced. "But you're still only two people. Who knows what could happen when you're off doing whatever spies do and someone kidnaps Chuck and you can't find him?"

Chuck considered pointing out that he had already been kidnapped before and Sarah and Casey had proved more than capable of getting him back, but decided that would be less than helpful.

Ellie was still talking. "I appreciate what you're saying, Sarah, I do, but he's still my little brother. How am I supposed to let him walk around with a huge target on the back of his head for every criminal in the country to take potshots at? I'm just not comfortable with this whole-"

"Ellie," Sarah said sternly.

She stopped talking abruptly.

Sarah leaned forward and took her hands. "You're just going to have to trust me, okay? I won't let anything happen to him. I promise."

Ellie looked hard at her for a few seconds, then let out a long breath. "Okay. I do trust you. Don't give me a reason to regret that."

Sarah smiled and sat back. Devon still stood back, watching. "Just for the record," he announced, "you had my trust as soon as you said you were a secret agent. It still sounds pretty awesome to me. And it's been great having this little talk, but I really have to go use the restroom, and I think I saw one back there, so I'm gonna go do that now."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Devon," she said flatly as he left the room.

"I do have another question, though," Ellie said curiously. "If you're an agent and you just came here to protect Chuck, either you two must have really hit it off, or you had already known each other for a long time, because you were already dating by the time I met you."

Chuck and Sarah exchanged glances. "Uh, about that…" Chuck grimaced, waiting for the storm of Ellie's wrath upon hearing that he'd been lying about his love life for the past two years.

Ellie looked at both of them. "You were never dating, were you." It wasn't even a question. Chuck had his face all scrunched up. Sarah was suddenly reluctant to look her in the eyes and leaned against the table.

Ellie seemed confused. "So what have you two been doing in Chuck's room all night all those times I thought you were- wait, have you two even…?"

Chuck practically shot out of his chair at the same time Sarah shoved back up off the table. "No, we haven't!" Sarah protested, almost as if she was afraid of how Ellie would react if they had.

Chuck lost any cool he had pretended to have. "Whaaaaaaat?" he said in a high-pitched voice. "Psssssssh, of- of course not, Ellie, who do you think I am, some stupid horny guy who would just- I mean, we've only known each other for like- and, she's _Sarah_ , I could never- not that she isn't beautiful, she is, definitely, have you _seen_ her in- but that's not the- listen, we have never- and we are not in any way… _involved_ other than for purely work purposes. Obviously. That would be like me and Casey- no, wait, scratch that, please never tell him that I said that."

The corner of Ellie's lips quirked up as she watched Chuck fumble, his face turning a deeper shade of red, and Sarah stare at him, trying to communicate to him through her eyes to shut up. Once he reached the part about Casey, Sarah finally just slugged him in the arm and said sharply, "Do you ever just shut up?"

"No, please continue," Ellie encouraged, sitting back, amused.

Chuck took the non-too-subtle hint from Sarah and shook his head. "No, Ellie, I will not." He looked proud of himself, like he had finally gotten the upper-hand. "I'm a spy who keeps secrets for a living, I can keep my mouth shut."

Sarah dropped her head into her hands. "How have you not been shot yet," she muttered.

"Anyway," Chuck said over her, "Ellie, I would love to keep talking to you about this, but the Buy More is still kind of in trouble, so Sarah and I gotta do something about that." He frowned, then turned to Sarah. "What are we going to do about that?"

Sarah lifted her head to say something, but Ellie interrupted, "What? No! You aren't going back in there! They have guns!"

Sarah slid her eyes over to her tiredly. "We have guns too."

"Well, yeah, but the two of you can't just go in and outshoot them. Besides, please don't tell me that you let Chuck use guns."

Chuck looked offended. "For the record, I am not a bad shot!"

"'Not a bad shot' and 'a good shot while under fire and trying to save innocent bystanders at the same time' are two completely different things," Ellie corrected. "And it doesn't matter, because you aren't going in there!"

"It's my job! What am I supposed to do, just sit here?"

"No, your job is to provide customers with tech support with a smile and an outrageous bill, not to try to save the world with some of the most elite forces in the world!"

"Who says I can't do both? I have been-"

"And it's gonna get you killed-"

"I'll be fine, I-"

Sarah growled and slammed her hand on the table. "Will you both just shut up?" she shouted.

Both Bartowskis shut their mouths with an audible click and watched her warily.

Sarah let the silence hang in the air for a few seconds, meeting each sibling's gaze with a steely glare of her own. She opened her mouth to speak.

"You know, for a secret spy base, I would've thought you'd have super cool spy toilets too, at least like those Japanese ones, but the bathroom is actually kinda-" Devon slammed to a halt as soon as he entered the room. His eyes darted to each person, then he stepped back. "You know, I think I saw an exercise room, I'm gonna go… check that out." He backed out of sight slowly, and quick footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Sarah never even looked at him. "I need you two to listen to me," she said in a calm, yet somehow scary, voice. "Ellie, I can't do this by myself. It's a matter of numbers. If I weren't outnumbered ten to one, I might cuff him to the wall and handle it alone, but I'll probably get myself and everyone in there killed in the process. Trust me, I've already tried that today. I've dealt with Chuck for almost two years now with an almost perfect record, I can do it again."

Ellie held her eyes for a few seconds, then slumped. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Just don't get him killed."

Sarah nodded, then turned her attention to Chuck, who was picking at the bandages under his shirt. He glanced up and noticed her, but looked back down immediately. "I know," he said sulkily, then continued in a Sarah voice, "'Don't be stupid, Chuck, stay behind me, be quiet, and don't do anything that Casey or I wouldn't. Actually, just don't do anything. You might accidentally shoot me in the foot.'"

Sarah cocked her head. "Actually, I was going to say that we're gonna need to go get another couple of pistols."

Chuck's head shot up. "Really?" he asked ecstatically, a huge grin creeping across his face.

Sarah couldn't hold back a grin in response. "Yes, go. Don't choose anything bigger than a pistol, though!" she called over her shoulder as he ran past her toward the armory.

Ellie looked surprised. "Really?"

Sarah shrugged. "Well, that wasn't what I was going to say at first, but he basically covered it all. I've already had the same argument with him today at least twice, and I don't want to keep fighting with him. Besides," she added with a nod toward Chuck capering around in the armory, "he looked so sad. If we're gonna go in, I might as well make sure he's happy while we're doing it."

Ellie had her eyes narrowed. "Sure," she said.

"What?" Sarah asked defensively.

"Nothing," Ellie said as she leaned back again. When Sarah pushed her, she relented with a coy grin. "You say you two aren't dating?"

Sarah nodded suspiciously.

"Just partners, huh."

Another slow nod.

Ellie laughed. "Whatever you say, Sarah. Just let me know when you two are past this awkward stage, mkay?"

Sarah straightened. "What awkward stage? What are you talking about?"

But Ellie would say no more on the subject. "I guess Devon and I will just stay here while you two head off?"

Before Sarah could answer, Chuck stepped out of the armory. "Sarah, I just realized I have no idea what I'm doing."

"You two have fun," Ellie tossed over her shoulder as she left in search of Devon. "I'm going to go make sure Devon doesn't get himself killed. You two do the same."

Sarah watched her go in confusion. Chuck looked at her. "You alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered absently. "Just something she said." After a pause, she shook her head. "But I have no idea what she was talking about. Let's go."

"Okay." Chuck moved to let her by, then followed after her. "Hey, can I use one of the AK-47's?"

"We don't have an AK-47."

"Oh. Nevermind. Wait, what about an M16?"

"No."

"Any assault rifle?"

"No."

"Oh, what about a shotgun?"

"Absolutely not."

"Do you have a Needler? I can take out some serious baddies with one of those."

"This isn't Halo, Chuck."

"Doesn't mean I can't have any fun."

"That is exactly what that means, as in this version of using weapons you can actually die."

"Way to ruin the excitement, Sarah."

"I'm not even going to respond to that. Come on, get serious."

"You know what, you're right, forget all the assault rifles and shotguns. I want a grenade launcher or a flamethrower and I won't go without one."

"You get a 9mm."

"Oh."

"Yep."

"Well, I guess that will work."

"It had better, you're not getting anything bigger."

"Not even a 10mm?"

"Just shut up and take the gun, Chuck."

 **...**

 **Hi there.**

 **[insert excuses for extreme laziness/writers' block]**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	18. Chapter 17

**I... sorry... about, uh... you know.**

Chuck was leaning against a wall in the main room, turning his pistol over in his hands, getting used to its weight. He tried raising it to eye level and looked down its barrel at the opposite wall. His hands were positioned carefully on the grip, index finger pointing past the trigger. Sarah had showed him this position a long time ago, a month or two after she and Casey first arrived. She hadn't been planning on actually giving him a firearm, but in the interest of safety and preparedness, she had showed him anyway.

Regardless, Chuck still had never fired a gun before. He knew how it worked ("Squeeze the trigger, don't pull it" and all that), but actually holding one, seeing the fluorescent lights reflect down the metal, made him feel more and more afraid of actually using it. He knew that a real spy had to be able to use one, and the lives of his closest friends and family might one day depend on him being able to pull-no, _squeeze_ \- the trigger. Sure, he had imagined doing so before, saving the day, impressing everyone and eventually no longer needing to keep half of his life a secret. Hadn't everyone at some point imagined doing something heroic like that?

But now that he actually had a firearm, he suddenly couldn't stop envisioning a bullet ripping into someone, tearing through muscle and bone. Ending someone's life, forever cutting them off from their family, their friends. It would take a certain amount of… as horrible as it sounded, Chuck had to admit it took a certain amount of bravery to kill someone. Sarah was brave like that, and in other ways as well, of course. Casey was brave like that. Chuck wasn't.

Could he be?

Chuck lowered the gun and blinked. He seriously needed to get out of his head and stop going through these spiritual crises in the middle of disaster situations. He glanced down and slid the gun into the holster Sarah had given him. Then he immediately took it back out to check the safety for the fifth time. He knew it was on, but he couldn't shake the mental image of accidentally shooting himself in the foot and ruining everything.

The safety was on. Chuck sighed and put the pistol back in its holster.

Ellie strode in, holding another first aid kit. "Alright, Chuck," she announced, setting the kit on the table. "I'm gonna change those bandages, and if you resist, I will get Devon in here to hold you down and it's gonna happen anyway."

Chuck looked at her for a moment, feigning aggravation. "Fine," he said sulkily. "Just know that I protest and my side is fine."

"Noted. Now sit down."

Chuck complied and let Ellie unbutton his shirt and lift his undershirt. After she carefully peeled off the bandages, she set them on the table and sat back a little. Chuck took the opportunity to study the face he knew so well. He was concerned to see a few more lines of worry and stress than were usually apparent on his sister's face. Which would make sense, of course, but he didn't have to like it.

He frowned. "Hey, are you okay?"

Ellie raised her eyebrows. "Oh, I'm fine," she assured him. "I just can't believe you're a spy and now I'm sitting in your secret base treating one of your gunshot wounds."

Chuck laughed a little uncomfortably, unsure of whether he believed her or not. "Yeah. Kinda crazy, huh?"

"That's one way of putting it." Ellie busied herself with the kit and said no more. Silence descended on the pair, heavy and awkward. Chuck fixed his eyes on the wall opposite him and tried to think of something to say. He wasn't even sure why the silence was awkward to begin with. It wasn't like his sister had never seen him shirtless before. They lived together; such a feat would be nearly impossible to pull off. Besides, they were siblings. They weren't supposed to be awkward.

Chuck finally decided to just ask her. Surely it was nothing and he was just being oversensitive. But if there was something going on, being direct about it was probably a better idea than dancing around it and then accidentally offending her later on, which he knew he would probably manage to do somehow.

Before Chuck could say anything, Devon emerged from the hallway. He leaned forward, anchoring himself on the doorframe behind him with one hand. "Hey, babe?"

Ellie paused what she was doing and turned to look at him. "Yeah?"

"I…" Devon stopped. "Oh, hey, Chuck. You doing alright?"

Chuck forced a smile. "Yeah, I'm good." Almost as soon as he said it, he heard the strain in his voice. Even with the short nap he could taken earlier (enforced by the near concussion he'd received), he could feel his body beginning to drag. He'd gotten little sleep the night before, and it was going to take its toll before this nightmare situation was over.

Devon clearly didn't entirely believe Chuck, but grinned in return. "Good."

"Did you need something?" Ellie asked pointedly.

Devon blinked. "Oh, yeah! I was going to ask if you were hungry. Because I was looking around back there," he motioned vaguely behind his back, "and I found this great big pantry and an awesome kitchen and I figured I could cook something up."

"We have a kitchen?" Chuck asked, amazed. "Man, I seriously need to spend more time down here."

Ellie shrugged in response to her fiance. "I'm okay. We ate before going to the Buy More earlier."

"Well, yeah, I know." Devon frowned. "But that was hours ago and we've been through a lot. I know I'm starving."

"Then make something for yourself!" Ellie snapped suddenly. "I'm clearly busy." Her words rang out into the room harshly.

Chuck and Devon exchanged bewildered looks, neither able to identify the reason for her frustration. "Okay, babe," Devon said carefully. "Just let me know if you change your mind, okay?" Ellie didn't reply. Chuck raised his eyebrows at Devon, who shrugged and mouthed, _No idea,_ before leaving the room.

There were another few seconds of silence before Chuck worked up the courage to ask, "Ellie?"

"What." Terse and clearly not inviting conversation.

Chuck swallowed. "I know you said earlier that you're fine, but I kind of don't believe you."

"Why not?" Ellie asked, her voice flat and emotionless. She didn't raise her head to look at him.

"Uh…" Chuck wasn't sure how to go about this. He had decided to be straightforward earlier, but now that he was entering the warzone, he was regretting that choice. Chuck was notoriously bad at getting signals or reading between the lines. One would think that, having lived with Ellie almost nonstop since he was a child, she'd be the easiest to read.

One would be wrong to think so.

Chuck forged ahead anyway, bracing for impact. "You're acting weird."

Ellie's hands stopped moving. "Weird."

 _Crap. I'm dead, I am so dead, I should've just kept my mouth shut. She's the one with ready access to needles!_

"Yeah." He chuckled uncomfortably. "Kind of rude, too."

 _WHEN WILL MY MOUTH STOP TALKING._

"Mmm." Ellie's hands began to move again, grabbing some clean bandages. She began to gently push them against Chuck's side, but said nothing else. Her shoulders were tight with pent up emotion or energy. It was difficult to tell which.

Chuck was unbelievably tense. His hands started shaking, and he buried them in his lap, hoping to still them before Ellie noticed. If he could've, he'd melt into a puddle right there and save Tony and his gang the trouble. This was the calm before the storm. Chuck knew it well, being surrounded with capable women who were all smarter than he was.

He knew the routine: 1) Chuck says something stupid, 2) lady (usually Sarah or Ellie) gives him a moment to realize his mistake, 3) Chuck digs his hole deeper beyond any rescue, 4) Sarah/Ellie pauses to restrain herself from punching him (Sarah) or kicking him out (Ellie), 5) Chuck is still confused, 6) a beat of silence as Sarah/Ellie draws in breath and Chuck prepares, then BAM.

Category 5 hurricane of insults, guilt trips, and explained signals that seem so obvious in hindsight comes flying at him with winds over a hundred miles an hour.

Ellie's hurricane was building. Chuck could feel it. All the running and escaping he had done earlier was all for nothing, because he was about to be murdered by his sister for finally reaching the absolute end of her patience. It had only been a matter of time, he supposed. He was, admittedly, rather thick headed, and a woman could only take so much.

Ellie finished with the bandage and straightened. Chuck prepared himself for her wrath. She looked him in the eye, breathed out slowly, then said, "Huh. Sorry."

Then she stood and walked away.

Chuck's eyes were stuck on the chair Ellie had just vacated. His eyebrows furrowed deeply. He had never felt more confused in his entire life. After a second, he slowly looked up. Ellie had left the room without another word. Nothing. She just… apologized. Then left.

Chuck groaned and let his face fall into his hands. "Ugh, this is _so_ much worse then the hurricane," he complained. If she wasn't willing to tell him about it, then it was either something so bad that she didn't feel comfortable telling him about it or it was something that she, for some reason, wanted kept a secret. Both options seemed worse than her usual temper.

As Chuck contemplated his near-certain doom, Sarah swept into the room, already talking. "Alright, Chuck," she announced, slapping some papers on the table. Chuck's head shot up and he focused on her. She sat at the table and looked at him. Her face was flushed, like she had just run somewhere. Her blue eyes shone.

Chuck looked at the papers. "What's happening?"

Sarah smiled. "Well, I've decided that, instead of arguing and fighting over everything as we're figuring them out, we should actually come up with a plan. So, I found these blueprints of the store, because we have copies of the blueprints of significant buildings around town, and I figured we could come up with something." She quickly pulled her hair up into a ponytail as she talked.

"Wait, the Buy More is considered 'a significant building'?" Chuck asked in disbelief.

"Well, yeah. You work there."

"Good point," Chuck conceded. "Any ideas so far?"

Sarah shrugged. "No, not really, I haven't started thinking about it seriously yet. I did get some numbers, though, from surveillance footage."

She spread out the blueprint of the store and weighted it down on the four corners with a few pencils she had grabbed. "From what I can tell from the footage, there are eleven gunmen and four hostages, excluding Ellie and Awesome, since they've escaped." She drew a circle near the center of the store, a few aisles away from Chuck's desk. "This is where the four hostages are," she explained.

"Who are they?" Chuck asked.

"No one I can put a name with," Sarah said. "There's a girl-early twenties, probably-an older couple, and a middle-aged man. It looked like most of them were trying to sleep."

Chuck rubbed the back of his neck. Identifying the hostages as people instead of just "the hostages" suddenly made the situation more real to him. They were individuals with their own stories and motives and ideas and families and friends, and if Chuck and Sarah couldn't get them out safely, all of that would be brought to a grinding, bloody halt.

Sarah moved on. "Now, there is one woman outside, guarding the back door. We saw her." Chuck nodded. The woman who had been about to shoot Jeff and Lester when he had barged through the door with Sarah in tow.

He'd probably have to deal with them at some point, but he didn't want to think about it yet. The longer he could put that off, the better.

Sarah marked an x outside the back door. "Two of the gunmen are down already. There's that guy from the TV room, Jake." She put an x in the viewing room, added a circle around it to mark him as out of the action.

"Yeah," Chuck said, reminiscing grimly. "You whacked him with your pistol."

"Not my finest moment. He could wake up in a few hours, though," Sarah pointed out, "so if we don't do this efficiently, we might have one more to deal with."

Chuck thought back through the hectic day. "Wait, who's the other guy?"

Sarah didn't look up at him. "Henry. He tried to keep me from escaping when Tony first tipped his hand. I may have beaten him to a pulp." _Because he kept threatening to shoot you,_ she thought but didn't add.

Chuck raised his eyebrows. "Oh. Well, I guess that's that, then." Another reminder to never get on Sarah's bad side.

"Yep." Sarah moved on quickly. "Anyway, there's one more guy by the hostage circles, and the rest are spread throughout the store. It looks like one or two might be in the back as well." She sat back.

Chuck suddenly remembered that their team was originally made of three people. "What about Casey?" he asked guiltily.

Sarah bit her lip. Chuck struggled to keep his attention on her eyes. "I couldn't see him," she admitted. "They must have him hidden somewhere."

Chuck whistled. "So, eleven people with guns versus you and me." He smiled at Sarah rakishly. "Easy as pie."

Sarah grinned back. "Exactly."

The moment passed. Sarah sighed lengthily, the full weight of the situation pressing in over her forced optimism. "I'm going to be honest, Chuck. Doing this alone is going to be… difficult, to say the least."

"Which is why you are NOT going in there alone!" a voice suddenly screeched.

Chuck jumped so high his knee banged against the table and he felt like he had ripped out his stitches. Sarah had her gun drawn and was aiming it around the room in quick movements, trying desperately to identify who the speaker was. "Who said that?" she demanded. "Show yourself!"

"Oh, calm down, Walker," the voice said. Sarah and Chuck spun to follow the voice to its origin.

General Beckman was sitting in her office, her arms crossed and her face pinched. She put on her glasses to see them better through the screen. "It's just me," she continued. "Now, I'm going to need the both of you to stay right where you are."

Sarah took a few seconds to calm her breathing before slowly lowering the gun. "General," she breathed out. "You scared me half to death."

Chuck was clutching his side. "Yep," he ground out through gritted teeth. "Same here. Not fun time."

Sarah's head whipped around to look at him, immediately forgetting what the general had said. "Chuck!" she exclaimed. "Did you reopen your wound?" She began to stand and move toward him, but Chuck waved her down.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he insisted. The grimace on his face was not convincing, but after a few seconds of indecision, Sarah sat back down. She looked troubled. "Chuck, if it reopens, you need to tell me," she insisted seriously.

Chuck waved her off again. "I will, but it's fine, I promise. Ellie literally just rebandaged it. I'm fine." Chuck forced himself to smile again at Sarah, trying to mask the pain. It was fading, but for a few seconds, it had felt like someone had shot him again. Now it only felt like someone had shot him with a high-powered airsoft gun at point blank range. Several times.

"We cannot afford for you to get shot, Bartowski," the general noted. "If you die, the past two years will all have been for nothing." She shot a glance at Sarah. "Not to mention you would be… missed. By some."

Chuck tried to sit upright again. "Appreciate the sentiment, General."

"Anyway," the general said. "Like I said before, Walker, you and Bartowski must remain in Castle and wait for backup."

"What?" Sarah asked, registering the general's words for the first time. "We can't do that. There are hostages in there-"

"And if you get them killed, the NSA won't be able to spin the story into anything positive, which is already going to be difficult enough as is," the general interrupted. "The best plan of action is for you to stay out of the way. A force is on its way-"

"We don't have time!" Sarah insisted. "Tony isn't going to wait for us to gather reinforcements. Sooner or later, he's going to make his move, and if we don't prevent him, who knows what harm he could do?"

The general shook her head. "We'll have to take that chance. It's better than sending the best and only agent in the area into a loaded situation like this one."

Chuck raised his hand meekly. "Uh, I'm also here. Just to make that clear."

The women ignored him. "General!" Sarah protested. "I can't just… sit here and _wait!_ "

Chuck muttered something under his breath about knowing how he feels.

Before the general could respond, Devon and Ellie burst into the room. "Chuck!" Ellie shouted worriedly. "What-"

She stopped when she saw the general. They made eye contact. "Oh," was all Ellie could say.

Devon waved.

General Beckman's face turned an unnatural shade of red. Chuck could almost see steam coming out of her ears. "Walker," she growled. "Explain. Now."

"They're not important right now," Sarah said dismissively.

Ellie made a squeaking sound. "What?"

Sarah tried to continue, but the general glared her into silence. "Walker, let me get this straight. Your assignment was to oversee a basic handoff operation with the help of one of the NSA's best, and within six hours, you have let a group of brainless gang members with guns take over a store, capture an NSA agent (yes, we know about Casey), take several peaceful citizens hostage, let the Intersect get shot, and now you have let two random civilians into Castle, our secret headquarters?"

"They aren't just random civilians!" Chuck protested.

"Bartowski!" General Beckman cut across him sharply. "I don't care who they are, they are not cleared for access to Castle and cannot have access to the military secrets that are kept there."

"So, what, are you just going to kick them out or something?" Chuck asked. "Where can they go? All our exits are either covered by gang members or surrounded by the media. If they just suddenly show up in a frozen yogurt shop now, after hours of supposedly being held in the store next door, you don't think some questions will be asked?"

Sarah laid a warning hand on Chuck's arm. "Look, General, we understand that we are in a… _complicated_ situation…"

" _Complicated_ is one way to put it," General Beckman said through clenched teeth.

Sarah tried to swallow subtly. "But we can't just do nothing."

"And you can't exactly go in guns blazing either," the general said. "There aren't enough of you. And besides, Bartowski has already been injured once _and_ you've recklessly endangered the lives of two civilians."

Ellie had finally had enough of being referred to as if she weren't there. "Excuse me, _General_ ," she announced, stepping forward against the table. "I am not just some 'civilian,' I am Chuck's sister, and I don't care who you are, but I am not going to just leave him here when-"

"Ellie!" Sarah hissed.

"No, she's right." Devon drew himself up and crossed his arms. "We aren't going to leave Chuck here alone. That's not right."

Sarah glared at him. "He wouldn't be alone," she reminded him in a dangerous voice.

"And regardless," the general said over all three of them, "I have the power to ruin both of your lives if you do insist on this meaningless charade of bravery."

Ellie squinted at her. "And just who do you think you are?"

"Brigadier General Diane Beckman, Director of the National Security Agency. And you?"

Ellie couldn't keep the slight sneer off her lips. "Ah. I see." Her eyes were sparking dangerously, but she kept her mouth shut. Devon's jaw clenched.

The general raised an eyebrow. "Now, listen to me. I understand that emotions tend to run high in situations like this, but if you would just keep calm and _use your head_ , you would all see that what I'm telling you to do is the best course of action here."

After a pause, she added, directed toward Sarah and Chuck, "Again, I can fire the both of you as well if you refuse."

Chuck slumped in his chair. He looked across the table at Sarah, whose hand was still gripping his arm, but he wasn't going to complain. She was staring at the screen with her eyebrows drawn together tightly. Her mouth was in a tense line. "Sarah," he said hopelessly. "I don't think we have a choice here."

Sarah didn't move.

General Beckman nodded. "Well, it's good to see that at least one of you has some common sense. Although I'd never have expected it to be you, Bartowski."

Devon looked around the room. "Wait, so we're just gonna give up?" His handsome face was contorted in confusion.

General Beckman straightened. "You are. And in case I'm not being straightforward, here it is in terms all four of you should understand." She leaned forward, her eyes specifically fixed on Sarah, who wasn't meeting her gaze. "As the Director of the National Security Agency, I, Diane Beckman, am officially ordering agents Sarah Walker and Charles Bartowski to- Sarah, wait, what are you-?"

Her panicked voice cut off abruptly, along with her image on the screen.

Chuck stared where the general had disappeared from for a few seconds before turning his head toward Sarah, his brain working overtime. She was panting lightly, the hand that had been resting on his arm now in the air, pointing a remote toward the tv. Her arm was shaking slightly.

"Um, Sarah?" he asked gently. "She gave us a direct order-"

"No," Sarah corrected him forcefully. "She was about to give us a direct order. But the connection cut out before she could finish. Now, since we have no instructions to follow, we will have to continue through this situation to the best of our abilities with what limited knowledge and firepower we have. Which, I suppose, means we'll have to follow what we deem the best course of action."

Chuck's jaw dropped an inch.

Ellie started forward. "And since the connection cut off, we haven't been able to reconnect with the general. Not for lack of trying, of course," she said as she yanked the tv's cord out of the wall. "There appears to be some issue in the wiring that Chuck isn't able to fix without the correct parts and tools."

"Which are all inside the Buy More," Sarah agreed, standing. "So in order for us to get back in touch with the general and hear what exactly she is ordering us to do…"

"We'll have to sneak back inside the store," Ellie finished for her. They both grinned and high-fived each other. "Good plan."

Devon stuttered a few syllables before relapsing into silence, staring at his fiance in shock. Ellie turned an uncharacteristically evil smile on him, and his knees almost buckled.

Chuck had similar difficulties trying to get any words out. He settled for a choked "Sarah!"

She flashed a sweet smile on him, a different approach that had the same effect on his knees that Ellie had on Devon's. "Yes, Chuck?"

"You-we can't just-isn't this-"

Sarah sighed. "Look. I… I know this is… unconventional."

"You can say that again," Chuck muttered.

"But you know that we can't just wait here, right?" Sarah circled the table and leaned back against its edge, less than a foot from Chuck's seat. "I know we keep fighting about how to do it and who should do it, but we both know that something has to be done."

Chuck ran a hand through his rumpled hair, which had started rather messy in the morning and had only gotten worse from there. "Yeah, I know."

"Look, I'm glad we all get along now, and I don't want to be a wet blanket or whatever, but isn't this illegal?" Devon asked worriedly. "I mean, if all three of you are for it, then I'm for it, but I would rather not lose my job over this."

Sarah pursed her lips. "I can't ask you to participate if you don't want to. And, to be honest, even if you do help, you probably won't do much more than communicate from back here."

Ellie tried to protest, but Sarah wouldn't let her. "The general was right about one thing. You're both civilians. No matter how much you want to help, I am _not_ putting either one of you directly in the line of fire." She noticed the defiant set of Ellie's jaw and narrowed her eyes. "Ellie, listen to me. You can't go out there."

"What if that isn't your decision to make?" Ellie challenged.

Sarah groaned. "We're on the same team here."

"Then let me help!"

Devon put a tentative hand on his fiance's shoulder. "El, I think she might have a point."

Ellie brushed his hand away and silenced him with a look. "Devon, don't tell me you're on her side."

He quickly backed away with a helpless look at Sarah, not willing to risk the possibility of future marital problems on the current issue. _Sorry,_ he mouthed to Sarah.

"What would you even do out there?" Sarah argued. "You have no training, no experience with weapons-"

"Like Chuck is any better! In fact, I handle scalpels and needles all day at the hospital," Ellie pointed out. "And I took a self-defense course in high school. In fact, I'd probably be way better prepared to handle myself in a fight than he would be. No offense, Chuck."

Sarah desperately switched tacks. "You can't help us if you get shot, Ellie."

"Well, what about Chuck, then?" Ellie asked with a violent gesture at her brother. "He's already been shot, but you're letting him go out there?"

Sarah laughed humorlessly. "We've already had that argument several times, believe me. If there was any way I could get him to stay here, I'd do it."

"And what makes you think there's any way to get me to stay here either?" Ellie said pointedly. "I'm not going to let my baby brother go put himself in danger when-"

"But I'm not your baby brother anymore!" Chuck finally shouted. He stood suddenly, pushing his chair back across the room with the force of his movement. He looked at Ellie for a second, trying to find the right words. "Look, El," he eventually said. "I appreciate what you're doing, and I love you, but I've already been doing this for over a year. I'm not some helpless ten-year-old who can't find his way to the bathroom anymore."

Ellie stared at him, her jaw working but no words coming out.

Chuck licked his lips and his fists clenched uncertainly. "I-I don't need you to babysit me anymore." Almost unconsciously, his hand strayed toward the pistol holstered at his hip.

Ellie's eyes followed the movement and registered the dull glint of metal. Her face visibly hardened. "Oh." The noise was small, involuntary. But it said all that was needed to make Chuck instantly feel like he'd simultaneously kicked her puppy and ruined all her dreams.

"El, listen," he began, but his sister shook her head.

"No, you're right," she said. She lifted her chin, and Chuck could see her swallow. "You're all grown up now. Who needs their older sister when they've outgrown them by a few inches?"

"That's not what I meant-"

"That's what you said," Ellie said bitterly. She glanced at Sarah. "Fine. I'll stay here." She took a step forward and looked the blonde dead in the eyes. "But you bring him back here safe, you hear me?" Her voice wavered.

Sarah met her gaze steadily. "You know I will, Ellie."

Ellie didn't look away for another few seconds, until she seemed to come to a conclusion. She nodded, then backed up. "Okay then. You two have fun planning or whatever you're gonna do now. If you need a doctor, well… I guess I'll be in the back somewhere. Doing… whatever there is to do down here." She spun on her heel and brushed past Devon, who followed quickly.

Before he left the room, he stopped to add, "If you need anything…" he trailed off.

Sarah nodded in thanks. He smiled briefly, then hurried after Ellie.

There was a deafening silence in their absence. Sarah slowly relaxed against the table again, trying to let the tension leave her body. "Well," she said, breaking the silence. "That could have gone better."

Chuck didn't respond. He just groaned and let his face fall into his hands, a position he was finding himself in increasingly often.

Sarah inwardly debated her next move for a minute or two before pulling a chair over and sitting in front of him. After a delay, he copied her movements and collapsed into his seat. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands together. "Okay," she said. "What now?"

Chuck rubbed his eyes and looked up. "I just realized how entirely exhausted I am," he said with a tired grin.

Sarah's smile in response was slow and wide. "Well, that's what happens when you mess up an entire mission, get shot, and knock yourself out on a table."

Chuck raised a finger sluggishly to point at her. "Hey, I didn't mess up the mission, that was Tony's fault."

"Tony?" Sarah asked, confused. Before Chuck could respond, she remembered. "Oh yeah, Hitchens. I'm still not used to calling bad guys by their first names."

Chuck shrugged. "They're still people, no matter how bad their life decisions may be."

Sarah squinted at him. "You can call people by their last name without demoting them from personhood status."

He shrugged again. "Anyway, I guess that's not important right now."

Sarah leaned back. "I guess not." _No time for their usual back and forth. Even though that was usually her favorite part of their missions together._ She clapped her hands. "Okay. We have to figure out some way to get in there, take out the remaining henchmen, rescue any hostages they still have, and get out before Beckman's reinforcements can crash in."

"And how much time do you think that will take?"

"I don't know. It's not like Beckman just heard about this. She's had a few hours to organize everyone. But NSA headquarters and training centers are mostly in Maryland; assuming she's dredging up all her best from over there, it would still take several hours to get here. Maybe… another hour or two? Optimistically."

"That… is not a lot of time," Chuck realized.

"Nope." Sarah rolled up to the table and pulled her blueprints of the store toward her. "We're gonna have to think of something either incredibly brilliant or absolutely insane to pull this off."

She looked at Chuck, who had moved up next to her. He studied the blueprints, then said with resigned humor, "Well, it's a good thing we specialize in the absolutely insane, isn't it?"

Sarah giggled. Almost immediately, she bit her tongue in mortification and tried to wish the sound back into her mouth, but it was too late. Chuck stared at her, dumbfounded. "Sarah," he said slowly. "Am I hearing things, or did you just _giggle_?"

Sarah furiously tried to hide her growing blush behind her hair. " _No_. You're definitely hearing things. I don't giggle."

Chuck moved his face up close to hers and playfully met her gaze with his own steely one. "No, I think you just giggled," he concluded. "I may be tired, but I'm not that tired."

Sarah shoved him away. "Oh, shut up. We're both tired."

"Aha!" Chuck shouted in glee. "You did giggle! I knew it! There is a little girl in there somewhere!"

Sarah punched him in the shoulder. "Shut up," she repeated, but it was a lost cause. Chuck was about to fall out of his chair with laughter, his hands pressing against his stomach as it heaved.

"You… you _giggled_!" He put a hand on her shoulder to lean on as he tried to catch his breath, but Sarah pushed him off and he fell toward the table instead. He was unperturbed, letting his forehead hit the table with a soft thud. He was still cackling hysterically.

Sarah crossed her arms, annoyed. "I don't see why this is so funny," she insisted, trying to keep any hint of a smile out of her voice.

"Honestly, I don't either," Chuck admitted, his voice muffled. "But I'm so tired, and you _giggled!_ " This sent him into a new wave of hysterics.

Sarah rolled her eyes, putting up a valiant effort to school her face into a cool and unaffected facade. "Calm down, Bartowski. We seriously need to-"

" _Bartowski_?" Chuck asked incredulously. "Since when do you call me _Bartowski_?" His face hurt from smiling, and his stomach ached, and it felt like his stitches were about to rip open, but it was a good ache that he hadn't felt in a long time. The tension from earlier was slowly draining from him in waves. He finally sat up and looked at Sarah, trying unsuccessfully to force down more peals of laughter. "Fine, _Walker_ ," he responded.

His words hung in the air between them for a few seconds, then he and Sarah both burst into laughter. Sarah got out between gasps, "Okay, fine, I won't call you Bartowski anymore as long as you promise _never_ to call me Walker."

Chuck put a heavy hand on her shoulder. She let it land this time. "I promise," he said with mock sincerity, a smile still splitting his face. They laughed for a few more seconds before finally calming down.

Sarah was the first to break eye contact. "Well, I guess we should start working on this insane plan then, huh?" she said hurriedly, turning back to the table.

Chuck let his hand fall. "Yeah, sure," he said, but he wasn't able to force down the rush of warmth that had rushed through him at the sight of Sarah laughing so freely.

She had never looked more beautiful.

 **Well, what do you know, I'm still alive. I'm not gonna give excuses or reasons or anything, but if any of you are still reading this, a clap and a half to you. Congratulations, you are officially a better person than me. :)**

 **This is about ten pages, I think, that I've been slowly plugging away at when I have the time, and I think it's still in character and everything. I don't intend for this to be the final chapter, so this story should be finished at some point (although who knows, I might finish it ten years from now, I dunno). Anyway.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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